Coffee Grounds and Gardening

Coffee grounds are a great addition to the garden and compost pile. Help to recycle this great organic resource and reduce the amount of organics going to the landfill! Thanks to our colleagues at Oregon State University Extension for the following information.

Some information about coffee grounds:

• Coffee grounds are about 2% nitrogen by volume.
• Grounds are not acidic; the acid in coffee is water-soluble so the acid is mostly in the coffee.
• Coffee grounds are close to pH neutral (between 6.5 - 6.8 pH).
• Coffee grounds improve soil tilth or structure.
• Coffee grounds are an excellent nitrogen source for composting. They have a C/N ratio of 20/1. In informal trials with OSU/Lane County Extension Service, Compost Specialists sustained temperatures of 140 O-160 OF have been recorded for up to two weeks (when coffee grounds were 25% of the material in the compost pile by volume).
• Anecdotal evidence suggests coffee grounds repel slugs and snails in the garden.

Go Green(er) on Earth Day!

It's Earth Day - what better time to consider ways to go green(er) in your own landscape? Here are six simple steps to get started. 

Plant a tree. Trees help purify the air, give wildlife a home, and planting them isn't as difficult as you might think. Read CSU’s Tree Planting Steps to ensure your tree is planted correctly.

Top 2018 New Year’s Resolutions for a Great Garden in Colorado by Carol King

Photo Wikipedia Commons

Having a thriving garden in Colorado can be a challenge with our erratic, weather, water restrictions, and heavy clay soils.  However making these seven resolutions will give you a much greater chance for a successful garden.

1. Get a soil test from a reputable soil testing lab before adding any amendments. Adding amendments without knowing what your soil needs is, at best a waste of money and at worst harmful to the soil and your plants. The Soil Testing Laboratory at Colorado State University is a great place to start: http://www.soiltestinglab.colostate.edu

2. Use mulch in the garden to suppress weeds and hold in moisture.  Mulches also improve water penetration and air movement; control soil temperature fluctuation; protect shallow-rooted plants from freeze damage and frost heave and improve soil structure and nutrient availability. This CSU fact sheet will help you choose the most appropriate mulch for your garden: http://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/mulches-for-home-grounds-7-214/

Easy Tricks for Pretty Treats by Carrie Garczynski

Photo by Carrie Garczynski

We all have pumpkins this time of year – either for decoration or degustation. Instead of tossing or before composting, there are a few tricks you can do to elongate your autumnal enjoyment. Not only do you have luscious pumpkin flesh to create a tasty treat, you have a perfect decorative vase for the center of your table. Decor like this can also be composted when the season is over. 

Vermaculture or Composting With Worms Videos

Vermiculture or vermacomposting is the cultivation of worms, using food scraps and produce a great soil amendment. Worm castings (worm waste) contain higher levels of

nitrogen than most other organic amendments. Worms are natural soil builders and vermicomposting is a clean and efficient method to recycle otherwise wasted food. 

Why vermicompost?

• It reduces the volume added to the landfill. 

• It requires little space, and equipment. 

• Children love to help and will be amazed at how quickly the worms work. 

• It is an indoor gardening project and perfectly suited for apartments or other small homes.

• It provides wonder compost for your plants. 

Here are three videos produced by our Jefferson County Master Gardener Video Team showing you exactly how to do this!

Part I

Part II


Part III

Hügelkultur – Who knew? Composting Process Using Raised Beds! By Audrey Stokes

Raised bed gardening using hugelkultur photo Open Hand Foundation

Used for centuries in Eastern Europe and Germany, (in German it translates roughly as “mound or hill culture”) hügelkultur (pronounced ‘hoo-gul-culture’) is a gardening and farming technique where woody debris (branches and/or logs) are used as a resource (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCgelkultur).

Often employed in permaculture systems, hügelkultur allows gardeners and farmers to mimic the nutrient cycling found in natural woodlands to realize several benefits. Woody debris (and other matter) that falls to the forest floor can readily become sponge like, soaking up rainfall and releasing it slowly into the surrounding soil, thus making this moisture available to nearby plants.

Hügelkultur is a composting process that uses no-dig raised planting beds constructed on top of decaying wood debris and other compostable biomass plant materials.  Hügelkultur farmers believe this process helps to improve soil fertility, water retention and soil warming, benefiting plants grown on or near the mounds. providing great spaces for growing fruit, vegetables and herbs.

The hügelkultur process is bleived to work well anywhere.  On a sod lawn Sepp Holzer, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepp_Holzer) hugelkultur expert, recommends cutting out the sod, digging a one foot deep trench and filling the trench with logs and branches. Then cover the logs with the upside down turf. On top of the turf add grass clippings, seaweed, compost, aged manure, straw, green leaves, mulch, etc... In most situations, the bed may only have to be watered the first year.

Christmas Tree Recycling by Donna Duffy

That lovely, fragrant cut tree you bought weeks ago has probably seen better days by now. It’s time to get it out of the house! Following are some options for recycling the tree once you’ve removed all of the decorations and tinsel. One caution: don’t burn the tree in your fireplace – the pitch content in the bark and needles can cause them to burst into flames from the intense heat.

Dreaming of Compost By Joyce D’Agostino

Since keeping our garden soils healthy and amended is always recommended, I had on my wish list a composter. Previously I had done some minor composting of things like fall leaves which worked well but I needed to advance to a better system to produce good quality compost.

Composter photo by Joyce D'Agostino

I was lucky to have recently acquired a tumbler composter from someone who was moving. I have already started adding some good quality kitchen and canning scraps to the composter and giving it a daily turn. It was time for me to get serious about composting since my busy schedule prevented me from amending my soil as well as it should have been and I could see a marked difference between the beds with amendment and the ones that did not receive a good dose of fresh soil and compost.

Composting is not difficult, but there are guidelines for what can and cannot be added to your compost. Often you hear you can add  “kitchen scraps” but not all kitchen waste can do into your compost pile. For example, you cannot add things like meat scraps, bones, etc. Not only do these not break down properly they can attract wildlife to your pile or composter. Also, if you had any plants that had diseases, these should be discarded with your trash and not added to the composter. The reason is that some composters do not get to a high enough temperature to destroy the pathogens and this could result in the compost becoming infected with these diseases and spread the following year if used.

Much of our front range soils are packed clay, so adding compost to the soil not only enriches it with great nutrients, but also helps keep the soil quality high to allow the right balance of oxygen and water.

The Great Pumpkin Recycle by Keith Rabin

Photo courtesy treehugger.com

This year, consider doing something beneficial, fun and productive with your pumpkins instead of relegating them to the landfill. There are many options that provide benefit to the soil, birds and wildlife.

Caution on Compost . . . Can It Be Too Much of a Good Thing? by Patti O'Neal

Amend, amend, and amend.  It is the mantra we all chant when managing our Colorado soils.  We here at CSU are constantly recommending that you add organic materials to your soils to improve water and nutrient holding capacity if you garden in sandy, gravelly or decomposed granite soils and to improve soil structure, drainage and filtration of water and nutrients in clay soils.  Improving the soil is still important for good plant growth and production of fruit and flowers.

But can you have too much of a good thing?  Much is being made, and justifiably so, of phosphates these days and their adverse effect on our groundwater supplies.  As a result many states are adopting laws to prevent the addition of phosphates to many products for household and outdoor use.

Autumn Composting-Seize the Moment! by Mark Woltkamp

Photo by Carol King

As avid and dedicated gardeners, we all spent this year’s spring and summer seasons working diligently to create natural beauty, to provide a hospitable environment for our bird and insect friends (both good and bad), and hopefully to successfully grow some edible crops.  But autumn is already upon us, signaling that it is nearly time to finish up our harvesting, weeding and transplanting activities and put away our beloved gardening tools for a well-deserved rest (for us too!).  

But we are not done yet!  Autumn is the opportune time to take advantage of this season’s abundance of available organic materials for composting.  This includes the products of your year-end clean-up of vegetable, perennial and annual beds, the kitchen waste of your recently-harvested vegetables, and, most importantly, all those dry leaves falling from your trees or that inevitably blow into your yard from seemingly every other tree in your neighborhood.

Sustainable Pets by Amanda Dowdy

Labbit the Rabbit!

There are many joys involved with pet ownership, but I was overjoyed this summer when I realized one of my pets can pull his own weight (and more) around here. Pictured above is Labbit, a one and a half pound black otter mini rex, and my family's newest addition. Rabbit leavings are a great addition to any compost pile, as it is very high in nitrogen. Also most natural shavings used in litter pans can also be composted, it complements the droppings with a carbon source. I use recycled newspaper in ours. Rabbits are herbivoures, their diets consist mainly of field grasses like timothy hay or orchard grass.  Dandylions are his favorite treat, that were grown in a pot for him on my deck. These little guys have great personalities, and now he has been recognized for his "contributions" around the house too! So next time you clean out the that hamster, chinchilla or mouse cage, chuck it in the compost bin!

Recipe for Christmas Compost by Mari Hackbarth

Think you can’t compost in winter?  Think again.  Vermicomposting (worm composting) can be done year ‘round, even at the North Pole.  Worm composting can be used to convert kitchen waste (and garden waste in summer) into a nutritious amendment for the garden and house plants, known by gardeners as “black gold”.  All that’s needed is a non-transparent plastic storage bin with lid, room temperature between 55 – 77 degrees F.; air, bedding, water and food.

According to Brenda Sherman, of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, using worms to decompose food waste offers several advantages:
It reduces household garbage disposal costs;
It produces less odor and attracts fewer pests than putting food wastes into a garbage container, or than traditional compost piles;
It saves the water and electricity that kitchen sink garbage disposal units consume;
It produces a free, high-quality soil amendment (compost);
It requires little space, labor, or maintenance;
It spawns free worms for fishing.

Green Manuring By Grace Olson

    Once when I was in early high school my mother asked me to take my old Toyota pickup and drive to a local dairy farmer to buy some manure for her garden. I dutifully chugged over to the quiet farm, where the owner’s teenage son helped me load several tractor buckets full of fresh, steaming slop into my truck bed. I puttered on home and began shoveling it out onto her beautifully maintained plot, eyes watering with the stench and wondering how anyone could stand using the stuff. A half-hour later, my mother came home, took one breath of the chaos ensuing in her yard, and explained to me in some very heated language all about the term “composted.” In the end, her garden recovered and we now laugh about how that was some really “green manure.”

Garden Weed Management: Using Pulled Weeds for Mulch

Pile of Bindweed. Use as Mulch? Think Again!

Andrea Cummins, Extension Agent at neighboring CSU Douglas County Extension, has this to say about using your weeds as mulch.  Be careful. You might be making your weed problem worse!

“Afternoon July thunderstorms have brought an onslaught of weeds in gardens and open space all along the Front Range. Soils too dry for seed germination this spring now have enough moisture to sprout weeds. Weeding practices may actually worsen the problem. Leaving pulled weeds on the soil surface is advocated by some as a way of mulching. Weeds dry out and die and the debris forms a mulch.

It is important to identify the weeds pulled for mulch. Some weeds can be pulled prior to setting seed and left in place with no danger of returning.Examples include: salsify, annual sowthistle, groundsel, and prickly lettuce.

Weeds such as bindweed, purslane, prostrate spurge and prostrate knotweed can root from a very small piece of stem or root. Gardeners should not leave these weeds on the soil for mulch, instead dispose of them in the trash.”

Herbicide Carryover: From Digestive Tract to Your Garden

Herbicide Carryover Injury

Considering getting manure from your local farmer for your garden?  Dear gardener, you might want to be cautious about this!

Dr. Tony Koski, CSU Extension Turf Specialist, recently informed staff about an excellent publication from North Carolina on the topic of herbicide carryover. 

North Carolina State University received reports from organic farmers and home gardeners of damage to vegetables following application of aged and composted horse and cattle manure to the soil. The symptoms exhibited on the crops are twisted, cupped, and elongated leaves; misshapen fruit; reduced yield; death of young plants; and poor seed germination. They found that one source of this crop injury is the presence of certain herbicides in manure and compost. With so many folks using composts and manures to improve soil, there have been increasing cases of contaminated amendments.  Unfortunately certain herbicides can pass through the digestive tract of grazing animals and into their manure.  Some straw products can contain herbicide residues used to manage weeds growing in the crop. 

Read more about the problem, recommendations and how to conduct a bioassay – a test for determining if that manure you’re going to buy from a local farmer is such a good idea!  Read the report here: Herbicide Carryover Injury

How To Make a Worm Farm With Your Kids by Jill Knussmann

Jeffco Extension 4H Cloverbuds  Show Off Wormerys!

In the dog days of summer, take a step into the cool shade to do a project with the kids.  Fact: Kids love worms.  Therefore, what could be better than making a worm farm? Benefits include knowledge gained about nature’s recycling process, nutrient rich worm castings to be used as a soil enhancer, and time shared with your kids. Let’s get started. 

Steamin' Compost by Elaine Lockey

A tumbler-style compost bin

 While visiting the Rooney Road Recycling Center this winter I happened to see a rather prehistoric-looking vision.  The huge piles of brush in their organic waste area looked like primordial vents as they emitted steam on a day that wasn’t warmer than 20F. 

For gardeners, the knowledge that in the middle of a compost pile, temperatures can be over 140F - well that’s just exciting! If you haven’t already started composting, there are many resources out there to help you get started including classes and internet information.  CSU Extension has a great Fact Sheet on composting yard waste.  

The statistics are rather shocking: grass clippings, leaves and yard waste make up 20% of Denver’s household trash.  Composting yard waste combined with kitchen waste can reduce by 300lbs per person how much we send to the landfill annually. (Source: Denver Recycles) Plants lose between 50-75% of their volume in composting so it is an effective way to cleanup your yard. 

“Non compost mentis” by Gardener Dave

I don’t abhor most garden chores,
not even the raking of leaves
But there’s one thing I do not do
It’s one of my favorite peeves

Organic gardeners, throw your darts
and tell me I’m not being Green
But I just can’t save up everything
for a turning-barrel and screen

Some compost everything they have
including their table food scraps
But I will buy my compost “done”
from a nearby Nursery, perhaps

I won’t have to remember to turn it
and keep it’s temperature high…
not even remember to keep out things
which have pesticides that I apply

I’ll shun the “delight” of making my own
I’ll just buy some, and plant me a tree
I like to do many things that are Green
but composting is not one for me

Cheers,
Gardener Dave


Note: The title of my poem is not original with me (shame, shame!). One of those who beat me to it is the author Darrell Schweitzer, who wrote: Non compost mentis: “An affrontery of limericks and other eldritch metrical terrors” (sound interesting?). There are no doubt other aberrations of non compos mentis, but I’m too lazy to look them all up, and your interest is probably flagging anyway. :o)

What to do with all those leaves? by Donna Duffy

We have had weeks to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage, and now we have to figure out what to do with all those leaves carpeting the lawn and yard. It’s best not to leave a thick layer of leaves on the grass for several reasons. A thick layer can block sunlight, reducing turf growth because of the shading effect. That thick layer will also hold moisture, increasing the potential for turf disease. Here area some options for managing all those leaves and keeping them out of the landfills.