Why spend money on toxic products when you have on hand a natural and biodegradable solution capable of working wonders in the garden and at home? This is coffee grounds. In the world, more than two million cups of coffee are tasted every sixty seconds and we are a little more than 7 out of 10 in France to drink coffee every day. That’s tons of grounds we could all use on a daily basis. The planet would be better off and so would we… Let’s discover the many uses of marc in the garden and in the home.
Coffee grounds: a real ally in the garden
While many gardeners treasure this coffee percolation residue in order to use it on plants, it is because they know how precious it is. They use it as well as natural fertilizer that to eradicate number ofunwanted which are harmful to many ornamental plants or vegetable gardens. Coffee grounds are:
- Ecological,
- Economic,
- Easy to use,
- Rich in :
- Phosphorus,
- Nitrogen,
- Potassium.
- Perfect for facilitating sowing,
- Ideal for myciculture as it promotes the growth of fungi,
- Very indicated, because of its acidity, to reinforce the blue color of hydrangeas,
- Effective against:
- Gastropods like slugs and snails,
- The ants,
- Aphids.
- Ideal for repelling cats,
- Unstoppable for melting the snow that covers the terrace and walkways but also for making them less slippery in the event of ice,
- Essential for good aeration of the cultivation soil since it attracts earthworms, these earthworms whose role in the garden is essential. Coffee grounds are also admirable in a vermicompost where it makes the earthworms more active and boosts the digestion of organic matter in these worms.
After this overview, we understand how essential coffee grounds are to the garden in all circumstances.
It can either be directly spread on the areas to be treated against undesirables after each heavy rain, either incorporated into the soil or topsoil when planting or repotting at 30-50%. Thus, the young plants will be able to benefit from the gradual diffusion of the nutrients it contains.
You can prepare a homemade liquid fertilizer made from coffee grounds for use on indoor plants. To do this, simply pour the grounds from the filter of the coffee maker into a container containing 150 ml of water and then leave the mixture obtained to stand for two days in the laundry room after having shaken it well. It only remains to filter the preparation with a strainer of the Chinese type of kitchen to obtain enriched water to be used on all the plants of the house or the patio.
Coffee grounds: an essential product at home
As soon as you start using coffee grounds instead of throwing them away, you can hardly do without them afterwards because this brown powder is useful on several levels. Coffee grounds are:
- Slightly abrasive,
- Deodorant,
- Degreaser.
Coffee grounds to clean, degrease, degrease
Spread over the cold ashes from the barbecue or fireplace, wet coffee grounds limit the formation of fine dust which is then difficult to eliminate, especially since the ash leaves black marks on clothes and carpets. It can therefore be used regularly in winter as well as in summer.
Placed directly on a sponge or microfiber cloth, it helps to to clean the stainless steel sink, the kitchen worktop, the glass or plastic shelves of the refrigerator, but also the bathtub, the shower, the sinks, the faucets… It removes dirt without scratching and is simply rinsed with a water.
Pour eliminate fat at the bottom of pots, pans, stewpots and sauté pans, coffee grounds are again very useful. It is sprinkled generously on the surface to be cleaned in order to eliminate fat without damaging its utensils and without using cubic meters of boiling water.
Coffee grounds for top drains
Coffee grounds also allowmaintain the pipes without resorting to chemical unblockers. It eliminates the grease that clumps on the walls of the pipes, but also the soap residue, hair and hair that always end up clogging the pipes. You can pour a spoonful of it into the sink and washbasins every day, then run a little very hot water. It is an extremely effective natural solution to put an end to pipes that regularly clog and there is no longer any risk of suffering the inconvenience due to the foul smells that come up from the pipes.
Marc to deodorize
Excellent natural air freshener, the coffee grounds are used pure, simply placed in a pot that is placed in the refrigerator to eliminate the smell of cheese or leftover broccoli, for example. Added to the wax of a candle, it can be used as an air freshener in the living room, in the kitchen, in the toilets…
But you can simply place small pots or old stockings filled with coffee grounds in the house, as in the garage or the cellar, so that after a few days, it has absorbed the bad smells. Finally, if you want to radically eliminate the smell of fish or garlic on your hands – where soaps fail – you simply wash them with coffee grounds. In addition to smelling good, they will have been peeled and will therefore be ultra soft.
Coffee grounds to hide a scratch on dark wood
On the side of dark wood furniture, the marc sometimes works miracles. Just drop a very small amount on a damp cotton ball with which you then dab on the scratches. They will be less visible. A solution that is best avoided to hide scratches on light wood.
Coffee grounds against flies and cockroaches
You can simply use the coffee grounds to no longer suffer from certain undesirables at home or on the terrace. It repels flies that hate its smell. To put an end to the cockroaches, we must develop a unwanted trap. This brown gold is placed at the bottom of a plastic bottle containing water and the neck of which has been cut to turn it upside down. Bugs attracted by the smell of coffee will be trapped.
In the garden as at home, coffee grounds therefore provide great service and simply replace many commercial products which are known to be toxic to the environment and health. But its virtues do not stop there: it is a anti-cellulite efficient, a exfoliant amazing, a anti-aging formidable, in short a beauty product to use without moderation.