Coffee chaff in the animal compound
With hard economic times, here are a few ways to pinch those pennies.
There are some advantages to living in the city. Goods and services are more readily available and nearby as compared to living in the country. The various shops around town always have some discards for which they usually have no more need.
Did you know that coffee roasters have burlap bags that once contained coffee beans, grounds and chaff as a by product from roasting and that they want to give away both for free? They only need someone to haul them away. That would be us – thank you, very much!
Chaff, the dry, scaly protective casings of the beans, is cast aside after the bean is ground for roasting. The chaff from coffee makes a great bedding for the hen house & “mulch” for the animal compound. I just open up the huge bag and dump it into the compound – smells so yummy! MMMMMMM
:: Resource ::
Coffee Chaff Chicken Coop Litter
Burlap bags in the garden
The discarded burlap sacks come in handy for uses in the garden for soil erosion and weed control. Not that we need ANY weed control, but the sacks come in handy when we are turning over the beds and don’t want the fresh dirt to attract all the cats from the neighbor to use.
:: Resource ::
Coffee grounds feed the worms
And, last but not least, coffee grounds will perk up your compost pile with much needed nitrogen. Our blueberries thrive on the caffeine fix! Sunset Magazine did a soil experiment and it turned out the grounds also provide generous amounts of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and copper.
Also worms also love coffee grounds!
So you see, there are lots of creative uses for “throw-aways.” Somebody’s trash is another’s treasure!
:: Resources ::
Coffee in the Garden
Compost Coffee
Give your Garden a Jolt
21 Ways to Use Old Coffee Grounds
Coffee Grounds, Coffee chaff, and Burlap Sacks
Comments(6)
Lisa says:
July 28, 2011 at 1:44 pmYou guys have such great ideas! I can’t tell you how inspiring you all are. Thank you. Keep up the great work!
Stacy says:
July 28, 2011 at 9:03 pmBurlap also makes excellent bee smoker fuel…
Anais says:
August 2, 2011 at 6:12 amGood one, forgot about that. Sure does!
Andries Pienaar says:
July 29, 2011 at 12:48 pmHi there from South Africa.
Been getting them coffee grounds from our local coffee shops for the last month or so. Adding to my compost heap. What a lovely smell!
Susan says:
August 1, 2011 at 11:08 amHee hee, do the worms get a caffeine buzz from the coffee grounds??? You could do an experiment and give one group of worms decaff coffee grounds, and the other group regular coffee grounds and see if the second group is more active than the first!
Anais says:
August 2, 2011 at 5:52 amThat’s a good one! LOL. You know, you could be onto something there! 🙂