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I have access to about 3 5 gallon buckets per week for my 150 foot personal garden, how should I spread it on the garden?

It's going to be over my sunchoke patch.

black thumb
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2 Answers2

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To grow sunchokes you should have well composted material in the ground before planting. Adding cooked organic material to the soil surface as coffee grounds is not a very efficient way of composting.

Graham Chiu
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  • almost like fertilizer tea.whenever it rains the way I'm doing it. – black thumb May 17 '16 at 17:15
  • If you spread it thickly it will form an impenetrable cake over the ground blocking ventilation, and when it rains, it will remain moist, and you'll get fungal growth over it, not fertilizer tea which starts with compost. – Graham Chiu May 17 '16 at 22:32
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You shouldn't spread that much on the garden around or over anything. The best use of coffee grounds is in the compost pile or heap, and even then, only a maximum of 20% coffee grounds in ratio to other ingredients of the heap, preferably less. If you want to put some straight onto soil, a very thin layer with, if possible, wood chips or other organic mulch on top would be okay - a thick layer of coffee grounds on its own may well 'bond' together and create an impermeable 'waterproof' layer.

Bamboo
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  • So spread them like a thin layer of sand? – black thumb May 17 '16 at 16:01
  • yea, sort of, but personally, I'd forget the coffee grounds and use some good garden compost instead. – Bamboo May 17 '16 at 16:59
  • i'm trying to do it on the cheap. – black thumb May 17 '16 at 17:14
  • I meant your own home made compost from your compost heap or container, but maybe you don't have one. If you don't, consider making a couple of heaps - that way, you've got free compost and you're recycling, using green stuff from the garden, vegetable peelings and stuff you'd otherwise throw away. – Bamboo May 17 '16 at 17:20
  • On the cheap, and with no compost heap, just mix it into the first few cms of soil so it will compost there. – Graham Chiu May 17 '16 at 22:34