Have any of the members tried composting Starbuck's used coffee grinds and added to the soil for potting the figs. I've heard they're "green" manure. I've also heard they scare off ants.

I heard its good but how many espresso's one needs to drink for a 100 and above plants to make it worthwhile...
my neighbour uses it btw for his potted garden and it looks nice and green somehow :)

Here in Richmond, you can go into a Starbuck's and ask for used coffee grinds. They will give you 5-20 lbs of it, free. But do you think it's good for the figs, especially in a pot? Elizabeth.

I absolutely think it's great for the figs and all other plants as well. I add grinds to my soil. I buy bamboo from a guy who starts them in 100% grinds. I don't know that the coffee does much for the plants but it sure helps the drainage. I also feed them to my worms to replace "sand" that some people give them.

They're really cute all amped up :)

The coffee is on the acidic side, right? I thought the figs like the alkaline soil, no?

Pine fines are acidic as well, that's why we add lime to balance.

i've been dumping coffee grounds randomly in pots containing acid loving plants. haven't seen any difference yet. haven't tried massive amounts tho.

 

Most all of the acidity is leached from the grounds in the brewing process. 

We add grounds daily to veggie garden ,  fruit and veggie pulp when we juice, and eggs shells when we use them all get buried in garden.

I have a 5 gallon bucket at our local gas station minimart.  They dump their grounds and filters in it, and I switch it out with a new one once a week.   It's usually full when I pick it up.  Goes into my compost pile, and from there, onto the veggies and around the trees.  Coffee grounds are great.

I garden in raised beds and after doing some research looking for cheap dirt I started using coffee grounds from the local Starbucks and to counter the acid I contacted a local BBQ place the used only hardwoods and they were more than happy to give me a trash can full of ash. Starbucks is wonderful about holding grounds for you if you let them know you want them.

Not in containers. They will block up drainage. Jon created a thread on the importance of particle size for container growing mixes.

Hi GRamaley, thanks for your post! I did the same thing with my raised beds , except I used dried grass clippings instead of wood ashes. The ashes are a great idea also. The ground coffee made my veggis garden smell great!And the veggis grew very well this year. Next year, as I up-root to 5 and 10 gallons, I am thinking of adding composted coffee grinds . James, if I add perlite to the coffee as well as bark, peat moss, etc, shouldn't that help?