Actual facts on how and why to use coffee grounds.

Hey guys, welcome back. I hope you're doing good today and I hope everything is going well for you. Well, in today's video, it's going to be kind of a follow-up of my last video on the coffee grounds. I'm going to give you guys, I think, some really good facts that I found from studies on acidity, on caffeine, and on nitrogen. And we're going to go over all that and I'm going to show you how I'm using them in my garden. And I'm going to give you a couple of what I think, after all the reading and everything, are probably the two best ways to use them. So we're going to go ahead and get into it. Now, there's been comments even on my video and articles and everything that says, well, they're good, they're bad. I think, after all the research and everything, I think I kind of understand a little bit why that is. You have so many different variations when it comes to coffee grounds that, even in all the studies, and these were from major universities, they could never get it 100% the same every time. So because you have brew time, how long you're going to brew these coffee grounds, the method that you brew coffee grounds with, and the type of bean. So for that reason alone, they came up with a lot of variants. Now with gardening, because none of these studies that I read were anything about gardening, it was just about coffee grounds, caffeine levels and things like that. So now you've got soil time. Again, the amount of variances here is really kind of crazy. So if your soil is a little more acidic and you have a coffee brewed a certain way, it could be somewhat acidic. Most of the studies were between 4.6 and 8.4, but generally coffee grounds are pretty close to pH neutral. And that's like 6.8. So in my opinion, after all the reading, coffee grounds probably aren't the best alternative if you're trying to lower the pH of your soil. But I can fully understand why people say they work now. Now for the purposes of this video, I want everybody to understand, we're talking about used coffee grounds, and we're talking about using them as a soil amendment. So again, anytime you're going to try to amend your soil, you really want to get a soil test and make sure you know what you need. Now for me, nitrogen. This is where I'm going to put my corn, and I know because I did a soil test, I need nitrogen. So I don't have a problem. Nitrogen coffee grounds are extremely high in nitrogen. Again, there's a variance there. Some people said 11 to 1. Some people said 20 to 1. Now even though usually when we're talking about compost, a brown, that's a carbon. But in this circumstance, a brown is actually a nitrogen, and they're very high in nitrogen. Somewhere between an 11 to 1 and a 20 to 1, that's like fresh manure. So that's why they work so good in a compost, because they really, they help that bacteria break down everything, and so that's why everybody, you know, I use them in a, and I do too. I use them in a compost pile. But guys, one thing you might want to think about is if you have wood chips, wood shavings, things like that that are really high in carbon, like up there, like a 300 to 1, guys, taking coffee grounds would be a really good mix with that to help them break down a lot faster. So like I say, it's like 2 to 3% of the coffee grounds is nitrogen, but what you have to understand, and this is where some of the gardening articles I read got it totally wrong. It's not a fertilizer. The nitrogen in it has to be released. That's why it's good in a compost pile. If you use it in your garden and you think you're just going to give it a big jolt of nitrogen, it has to break down first, okay? Coffee grounds, they have potassium, they've got magnesium, copper, phosphorus, things like that, and some of it is ready, you know, if you put coffee grounds in, it's automatically going to give you that fertilizer effect, but not the nitrogen. The nitrogen has to break down, okay? So caffeine, caffeine is just like the acidity. It's water soluble. That's why you can start out with, I believe it was 12 milligrams of caffeine per cup, and after you use it and you check the grounds, it's down to like 3 to 7 milligrams per cup. So it really knocks that caffeine out. So guys, don't worry about, you know, the harmful effects. I really don't think they're there, but you have to be aware that the good things, they're only used a certain way. So I'm going to show you this, coffee grounds. Now guys, if you pack them around a plant, they can block the water. I mean, they are very fine particle, and when they get wet, they're going to harden up. So guys, one of the ways, probably the best, one of the better ways you can use these is to just spread them out in your garden and then rake them in or kill them in. Like for me, I don't think I can use enough that it's going to cause any kind of a water barrier, but it is organic matter and it will help with water retention. It will help with aeration. Worms love them. I never read an actual study. The only way that worms are going to be bothered by them is just if you just used way, way too much, you know, like in a worm bin or something like that. They talked about that, but you would just have to overuse them. Now the other way, which is probably the best way to use them, is in a compost pile. The filters are good, but again, the coffee grounds really help that bacteria break all that matter down. Now there is another way, and this is going to be a little controversial. I use, I put two cups of used grounds in a five-gallon bucket, and then I just, I just water. And this isn't to help the nitrogen, but because it has all these other trace minerals in it, I don't think it's going to hurt. Maybe it's just me, but I think that part will help. So I'm going to do that too. So guys, that's the video. That's the best facts that I found. I think that's a good, honest assessment of coffee grounds. Again, I think they're good for your garden. So that's the video. Hey guys, thanks for watching. I'll talk to you later. See ya!