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Starbucks Barista uses Grounds for her Garden
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Author:  Sasha [ Tue May 11, 2004 6:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Starbucks Barista uses Grounds for her Garden

Hello,

My name is Sasha and I am a Starbucks Barista in Norman, Oklahoma (That means I run an espresso bar and make coffee for a living). My partners at work think I'm quite strange because I eagerly take home as many coffee grounds as I can to put in my compost pile. I also use it to amend the soil. My purple bush beans especially seem to appreciate it!

I encourage all of you who live within a reasonable distance of a Starbucks to drop by and pick up a bag of coffee grounds from the local store. If there's none near the doorway in the appropriate box, then ask a barista behind the counter. If you bring in your own bag or bucket, that makes things a little easier. After an eight hours shift on a Saturday, I can take home as many as five or six large bags of coffee grounds. It's great for compost and is very high in nitrogen!

your organic barista,
Sasha

Author:  dcluck [ Tue May 11, 2004 10:18 pm ]
Post subject: 

Lately there's been an increase in the competition for grounds at the 2 Starbucks I troll at. It's been a (mostly) bi-weekly ritual of mine for over a year to stop in for spent coffee grounds. As it stands now I've got perhaps 8 bags of the stuff in reserve. I've recently started drying about a 3rd of the spoils for direct use in my ailing flower beds. Hope that helps things out.

The quadruple venti mocha I walk out with is just to make like I'm not walking in there looting the place. Really.. :wink:

~Dave

Author:  Neighbor [ Wed May 12, 2004 9:48 am ]
Post subject: 

How much coffee grounds is too much for a new compost pile? Do the coffee grounds need to be used before they are viable for composting? Sorry, still new to this organic thing.

Author:  hamelcd [ Wed May 12, 2004 11:04 am ]
Post subject: 

Dave,

You are a good man. I, on the other hand, have no problem walking out with as many bags of used grounds as will fit in my Kia without buying anything. I applaud Starbuck's commitment to recycling their waste in this manner, but it still doesn't compel me to pay three bucks for a cup of coffee.

Neighbor,

I throw the grounds right on my soil and haven't had any problems as of yet. I've even scattered them on the lawn... it smells really nice afterward.

As with anything, I wouldn't overdo it, but I haven't found any ill effects with applying the grounds directly. I personally wouldn't throw them directly atop plants, though.

Regards,
Chris

Author:  Sasha [ Wed May 12, 2004 9:08 pm ]
Post subject:  How much is too much?

Greetings Dave, Neighbor, all...

Coming from a Starbucks Barista, please feel free to take as many as you can get without feeling obliged to buy anything. I love to help out the gardening fiends in my area. You might have to prompt the staff of your local joint, since it's not a major task of ours and sometimes the partners just dump the grounds in the trash. I just happen to be obessed with saving every possible bag of black gold available on my shift.

As for too much coffee grounds...I believe that the grounds should be used within a few weeks of brewing to get most of the nitrogen. After that you've basically got nutritionally spent good organic material for the pile, which can't hurt. I work at my Starbucks and have been taking home as much as I can carry (four bags a day). I have a pretty small yard and a hefty compost pile haven't run out of uses for it yet! However, I drop a few bags by the local organic garden center and have found a few organic gardeners in my area. I like to spread it around!
:shock:
Sasha

Author:  Mr. Clean [ Wed May 12, 2004 9:55 pm ]
Post subject: 

<Thumbs up x2> (Golly, gee admins can't we get a thumbs up emoticon?) Sasha for your commitment to keeping these valuable resources OUT of your landfill. Thanks also for helping out your fellow gardeners!

Author:  sterlingtx [ Thu May 13, 2004 8:48 am ]
Post subject: 

Very interesting.......I'm on my way to my local Starbucks!

Author:  ziggy [ Thu May 13, 2004 11:08 am ]
Post subject: 

Dave, why do you dry the grounds, and why do you need to?

BTW, every coffee shop I've stopped at to ask for grounds has been happy to supply me with whatever they have. And don't forget your cafeteria at work, I collect grounds there every day. I just take a couple plastic grocery bags and collect the grounds directly from the big coffee makers myself (with prior management approval of course).

Sasha, as a barista, could you give some advice on how to approach baristas about saving grounds for me? I know Starbucks has their program to bag up grounds and put them by the door, but other coffee shops just put them in the trash. Is there some way I could help them so saving grounds for me would not be difficult and also not cause them any problems with health inspectors? I would be willing to drop of a trash can(s), or bags, or whatever would facilitate the process.

Author:  ziggy [ Thu May 13, 2004 11:12 am ]
Post subject: 

ziggy wrote:
Dave, why do you dry the grounds, and why do you need to?
.


I meant to say HOW do you dry the grounds.

Author:  dcluck [ Thu May 13, 2004 12:50 pm ]
Post subject: 

I dry them in order to make it easier to hand broadcast them. I have a huge piece of cheap plywood that I spread them out on. Nothing fancy. After about 2 days they're ready to be swept up into a 3 gallon bucket and ready to store or apply wherever needed.

~Dave

Author:  neoBear [ Fri May 14, 2004 6:30 am ]
Post subject: 

hamelcd I have put coffee grounds directly around my plants with good results for the last coupl of years. I work ar Quik-Trip and can some home every shift.

Author:  Sasha [ Sun May 16, 2004 8:15 pm ]
Post subject: 

ziggy wrote:
Sasha, as a barista, could you give some advice on how to approach baristas about saving grounds for me? I know Starbucks has their program to bag up grounds and put them by the door, but other coffee shops just put them in the trash. Is there some way I could help them so saving grounds for me would not be difficult and also not cause them any problems with health inspectors? I would be willing to drop of a trash can(s), or bags, or whatever would facilitate the process.


Ziggy,

Funny that you said that. Some stores may put out grounds regularly to random takers and some stores have a group of regulars that can snatch a bag of grounds before you can say "jiminy!" My store is one of the latter type. They disappear and I never even see who takes them! I recently stopped by an Albertsons Starbucks and requested used coffee grounds- and the barista told me, "Oh, I'm sorry, they're reserved for somebody else" :?

At the beginning of the season, at my store, a man left a 5 gallon bucket, which we filled up every day for him. You might offer to leave something small and manageable like that. A trashcan would be, I think, too large. We have very little space in my store and every little obstacle gets in the way. If you brought in your own bucket, I think a barista would be happy to store it under a counter somewhere. We're very accomodating here in Norman- I hope that goes for your local Starbucks, too! You can also request to get the spent tea bags from making the iced tea... :D

Sasha

Author:  Neighbor [ Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:54 am ]
Post subject: 

Now that I understand that coffee grounds can be used for composting, can it be used for a compost tea, ur, compost coffee? :lol: Is coffee good for compost pile. I end up with a quantity of old coffee at the end of each day. Can this be literally be poured in? I'm not sure where I going with this, but this does seem like wasted compost tea, ur coffee.

Author:  CCC/cce inc [ Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:35 am ]
Post subject:  Coffee grounds

How can you dry large amounts of coffee grounds? Will mould on the coffee grounds hurt plants in the garden or in the compost?

Author:  Enzyme11 [ Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:59 pm ]
Post subject: 

Neighbor wrote:
Now that I understand that coffee grounds can be used for composting, can it be used for a compost tea, ur, compost coffee? :lol: Is coffee good for compost pile. I end up with a quantity of old coffee at the end of each day. Can this be literally be poured in? I'm not sure where I going with this, but this does seem like wasted compost tea, ur coffee.


Maybe a reason not to do it will come up, but I can't think of one right now--as long as the accumulated pourings don't make the pile too wet.

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