In The Garden - Coffee Grounds

The front food garden is coming along SO GOOD! These photos were taken 2 weekends ago, and I can already see a big difference between then and today.

Continuing with some of my zero waste and compost blogs, I wanted to share a little video on how I divert COFFEE GROUNDS from the landfill by using them in my garden.

Gosh Laverne is so pretty right now...

I also learned that coffee grounds are a potential deterrent for whatever animal has been munching on the carrot tops! Very excited!

I do this "treatment" every couple of weeks now. That's about how long it takes to fill up the plastic container. I have lots of garden to cover, and then any extra will go straight into the backyard compost bins.

FURTHER READING

All of my "Zero Waste" posts are here, and I think I have a few "Gardening" ones saved as well.

I found a lot of great articles about using coffee grounds in your garden on Google. There are some plants that you shouldn't use them with. So always do a little extra research if you're not sure.

VIDEO TEXT

All right I’ve got a quick gardening video for you today. I have been saving my coffee grounds for awhile, and I usually put them in my compost but I noticed that Dan wasn't throwing the coffee grounds into the compost bin (under the sink) so I thought, what's an easier way for him to be able to do this so I can still use the ground for something? So this is silly, but this is what I did.

I took this plastic container and it's pretty shallow and I stuck it in the cupboard below where we make coffee. So he has to just open a door, open up the container, and dump it in. We still use paper filters because as you can see there's a hole there. Our percolator you have to punch a hole through the filter and I haven't quite figured out how to make my cloth filters work for that. So today we're going to use coffee grounds in the garden!

The coffee grounds are good for a few things in your garden. They help retain moisture, they help prevent some pests like slugs and stuff. They are supposed to help with worms which I'm not sure how they do. And they also have some good maybe nutrients or something I think I've heard I'm not sure. I use them more for pest deterrent I think this year for me especially and the water retention. And they are super easy to apply.

So yeah to apply you pretty much just you sprinkle them around. I don't want them to clump too much because then it's almost too hard on the top as it dries. You can mix it in too. I don't need a lot. I'm going to do a little better job here when I'm not holding my camera. And that's it! I use a regular dinner spoon because that's my jam I have knives and spoons littered throughout my garden because of course I do. So that's it. A super easy way to divert coffee grounds from the waste stream in the garbage. We drink a lot of coffee as I'm sure many of you folks do as well so this is Black Gold for us for the garden and for our compost. I would love to hear how you use up food surplus. Something that otherwise would go to the garbage in your kitchen.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

It has always been a half remembered dream to live out in the country or in a small town. I'm a city girl, born and raised, but there is something that takes over in my heart when I hit a gravel road, or see an expanse of prairie fields, and skies that go on forever.

We have friends who bought a home just south of the city last year, and they invited us to make use of some of their giant garden. So Dan headed out there in the spring and planted a few zucchinis, cucumbers, and potatoes. Some sweet peas made it out there by accident, so those went in the ground as well.

Last week, Kyle texted Dan and told us to come out and get our zucchinis because they were as big as his hand! So the three of us jumped in the van and made the trek south.

We quickly finished our small harvest and wandered the property while Dan chatted with his friend. Lucas walked around with me, but he wasn't feeling it. I remember feeling this pull to the prairies even as a child. What did I experience back then that was different? What have I seen and done to make me feel this way, when my son doesn't? What does he have in his life that makes him feel the same as the prairies makes me feel?

I feel this pull most strongly when we leave the city. There are a few places in the world that give me the feeling of peace and calm without even trying, but the prairies are much closer than the others, so I can get my fill more often.

But could I live out here? Away from the conveniences of my city life? One block from a bakery, grocery store, and our fave dive bar? Fifteen minutes to Mom or Dad? Or to anything else I might be missing?

But this is my one wild and precious life. One. Just this one. So isn't it worth a little sacrifice in one area to at least try it on for size?

Perhaps one day, I will have a view like this to call my own. Until then, I will graciously - and gratefully - accept the invitation to tend another's garden.

xo

Garden of Lisa

I have never claimed to have a green thumb. Or even a green-ish thumb. I have a brown thumb at best. I take a "Darwinian" approach to gardening: if you can't survive on your own, you don't belong in my yard.

And yet I love to garden!

I love choosing plants at the greenhouse every spring, even though I have no idea what goes where or with what. I buy things that look pretty and have lots of leaves. I love getting dirty, and weeding.

I love getting excited when something starts to bloom - even if I don't know what it is - or when I see those first tiny tomatoes show up.

And if things die, or get trampled on by the lovely handymen building me a new fence, whatevs. I enjoyed them while they lasted, and something new will go in their place next year. No big deal.

The only thing I hate is getting that damn hose out from around the side of the building, adding in my other hose because the first one isn't long enough and watering the stupid grass in my yard. I hate grass.

But actually, I don't even really hate that.

I love it all.

This was a big ol' Garden Love Fest post, now wasn't it.

Yessirree.....

#keepsmesane

later loves

Enjoying The Sun

It has been so warm and gorgeous out lately! Wowee! Instead of getting some lovely new outdoor chairs, I have been tasked as custodian for these simple fellas for the next two years. They were free, and they are comfier than they look.

And did I mention they were free? I mean, they're no awesome retro-looking ones, but a girl can dream eh!?

I love this time of year when I can start planning my garden, and buying plants, and watering things. My grass is still dead and brown...yuck...but I have loads of greenery bursting through in the other parts of my yard and that is giving me cause for hope!

Although I'm thinking of a serious revamping of the garden. I want to try and get some food plants in here this year. Oh my...wish me luck!
(Update: I planted tomatoes, lettuce and beans in containers out front and they are all doing very well!)

And now that I have four chairs, I have been thinking (more) about doing some outdoor entertaining! Maybe some patio lights are in order...really piss off my neighbours!

(more lights here Lisa...FYI)

And some food for thought on this fine Friday...

print from Small Talk Studio

later loves


P.S. I don't know where I can get my hands on any blood oranges, but I have lots of mint growing on my front step, and I am always up for a trip to the liquor store...

Minty Whisky Sours from The Talking Kitchen

Green Grows the Laurel

"I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself."

(from American Gods by Neil Gaiman)

I sort of looked spaced out in these photos. I think I took these first thing in the morning...before work. Which means it is pretty much a miracle that I had the manual dexterity required to set the timer on the camera.

This is the Joe Fresh Outfit of the Week. Top is new (oh god...I am addicted to buying tank tops right now...it is taking all of my will-power and budgeting skills not to buy this one right now!). Skirt is actually an  old dress that I cut the top off of. It is too big for me yippee so thank goodness for belts! Shoes are new-to-me from American Eagle via Value Village.

My plants are thriving out front right now. It sort of feels like a miracle-slash-disaster-waiting-to-happen. We shall see...It also feels good that my green front step seems to be rubbing on my neighbours. Now if only the house full of bachelors would put out a plant or two...HA! I have it on good authority that bachelors kill plants. Somebody prove me wrong!

later loves