So I open my New York Times magazine this morning, and what do I see but a green-tinged full-page ad featuring some young Oriental woman in her garden, under the bold, large-print headline, "Tomoko Senechai is a GARBAGE collector."
OK, what's this all about?
Turns out Starbucks is giving anyone who asks, at any of their zillions of stores around the world, bags of used coffee grounds to use in the garden.
Excellent.
Find out more at their website, or just read the gist of it below:
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Let Starbucks help your garden grow.
Coffee grounds can provide a valuable source of nutrition for your garden if used properly.
The proper amount to be used depends on the condition of the soil and, more specifically, what you are growing in your garden.
Check with your local gardening expert to see what is best for your situation. Here are a few general tips:
1) Applying coffee grounds directly in the garden.
Coffee grounds can be applied along with other materials as a side dressing for vegetables, roses, and other plants.
Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, but are also acidic.
Adding brown material such as leaves and dried grass to the mulch will help keep a balanced soil pH.
2) Mixing coffee grounds in your compost.
Coffee grounds act as a green material with a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1.
They make an excellent addition to your compost.
Combined with browns such as leaves and straw, coffee grounds generate heat and will speed up the composting process.
3) Using coffee grounds in a worm bin.
Worms fed with coffee grounds combined with other materials will flourish.
For more information about composting, here are two helpful Web sites:
What's in Coffee Grounds?
Article comments
1 - Tanja
jeez sears is going downhill...
2 - Frank
FYI, some people consider "Oriental" a derogatory term. I don't fully understand it, but it's got negative stereotypes associated with it or something and isn't "politically correct".
That aside, it doesn't seem many of the Starbucks formally participate in the program, as the three in the LA area I called up recently weren't in the know. However, they all did seem willing to save up the grounds if you call ahead of time, like in the morning of that day. I called like thirty minutes before at night and still got 3-5 pounds for my worm bin. :oP :o)