Coffee grounds?

[pookah]

I’m growing some greens for my bunny, and I understand coffee grounds make excellent fertilizer.

However, I gather that coffee *beans* aren’t safe for consumption, as they destroy nutrients? (Is it that they hinder nutrient absorption?)

Also coffee tree plant is listed as extremely toxic, but I gather this must refer to the leaves and stems, or the beans wouldn’t be described as above?

The grounds would be mixed into the seed starting mix, and I don’t think it would be likely he’d eat any. I had considered making up wheatgrass trays for him, too, that he could munch on like the little forager that he is, and in that case he’d be a bit more likely to ingest at least some, but then it would be after all under all the grass…

But is it possible that harmful compounds in the coffee beans could be absorbed into the greens in quantities that could make him sick (or just less well?)

Thanks much!

[Mikey]

Since the grounds are ground beans, i would assume they are still toxic to rabbits

[Bam]

You don’t have to use fertilizer for growing wheat grass. You only have to fertilize the soil if you are actually growing wheat, the grain. All the nutrients required for the grass to sprout and grow to suitable harvesting-heght is in the seed from the start. That’s why grain is nutritious, it stores nutrients and energy that the new plant uses in order to start growing.

Coffea grounds can be composted or added to soil in flower- or veggie-beds, where it will break down and add texture and some nutrients to the soil. Here it’s often used around plants to deter wild rabbits, but I don’t know if it’s very effective. It is toxic due to it’s contents of caffeine, but it’s the smell that’s supposed to put rabbits off.

TLDR, you don’t need the coffea grounds to grow wheat grass. Since there are some potential risks involved, I’d not add coffea grounds to the soil.

[pookah]

Okay, thank you both!  I wasn’t sure if the beans themselves were actually toxic, or just shouldn’t be ingested due to nutrient absorption issues, in which case it could be okay to have them in the soil as long as I cut the grass instead of giving him a tray to eat?  I don’t want to take risks with his health, but sometimes I know I’m over-worried for nothing, lol (And sometimes I think if I worry too much, he can tell, and that’s no good, either! )

But more importantly, if the wheat grass is fine without fertilizer, I can just skip that.

[pookah]

Posted By bam on 10/23/2016 2:21 AM

You don’t have to use fertilizer for growing wheat grass. You only have to fertilize the soil if you are actually growing wheat, the grain. All the nutrients required for the grass to sprout and grow to suitable harvesting-heght is in the seed from the start. That’s why grain is nutritious, it stores nutrients and energy that the new plant uses in order to start growing.

Coffea grounds can be composted or added to soil in flower- or veggie-beds, where it will break down and add texture and some nutrients to the soil. Here it’s often used around plants to deter wild rabbits, but I don’t know if it’s very effective. It is toxic due to it’s contents of caffeine, but it’s the smell that’s supposed to put rabbits off.

TLDR, you don’t need the coffea grounds to grow wheat grass. Since there are some potential risks involved, I’d not add coffea grounds to the soil.

Bam, do you know if it’s specifically and only the caffeine that’s toxic?  And to what severity?  E.g., is it safe to use as a fertilizer on an adjacent tray provided he’s not going to eat any of the vegetables grown in it?  I don’t like to waste what I don’t need to, but obviously I’m not going to risk his health.

For that matter, is it unsafe to have coffee in the house?  Right now, he pretty much likes to stick to his own room, but I’ve been trying to encourage him to venture out more.  He’s not inclined to wander into the kitchen, but if he did, and there were a couple grounds that had fallen on the floor, could they make him ill?

[Bam]

I do think coffea grounds are safe to add to the soil you grow stuff in, as long as the bunny doesn’t eat the coffea grounds. I can’t say how toxic it is, it’s a stimulant, so probably not good for rabbits, but you rarely come across a bunny that has accidentally ingested coffea, so I’m not quite sure. Since coffea grounds are used as a deterrent in gardens, I would assume the rabbits dislike the smell (and taste) of it.

I put coffea ground in my warm compost. The gardener where I used to work put it around the rose-bushes, just to keep the wild rabbits away. It didn’t help much, they still dug up the plants and he was so angry at them, because they had plenty of other places they could dig =)

[pookah]

Lol! Poor guy — little did he know, nothing deters any bunny that wants to dig, chew and bunstruct!

Thank you for the advice on adding it to compost! What do you use for composting? I was reading about something called Bokashi, which is supposed to be fast and not have too strong an odor, such that people use it indoors through the winter. Are you familiar with it?

Thanks again for all the advice!

[Bam]

My mother uses Bokashi. It does have a little bit of smell though, so she collects potatoe-peel and coffea-ground etc in her kitchen in a smallish closed container, then transfer it outside to the Bokashi-container. She only just started this summer, but now she’s started a “soil-factory” in a pallet collar in her garden. She’ll probably need to put the active Bokashi-container in the basement if it gets cold this winter (it doesn’t all winters here). 

I only have “normal” warm composts, and I mostly put mowed grass, soft twigs and used rabbit litter (wood stove pellets or straw pellets) in them. I also add biochar. (None of those “composting accelerants” you buy but char that we make in a TLUD – top lit up draft stove, that I made on a course I took. We use it for stir-frying during summer.) 

[pookah]

Thank you!  Really useful info!  That sounds like such a cool class!

How does the soil factory work?  I was reading a bit about it, but I was wondering if it could work still, indoors.  The article I read said a soil factory might not be as fast as burying the bokashi, because there wouldn’t be as many worms.  Other things I’ve read said that bokashi works well indoors, in condos, or for container gardening, and that it doesn’t require worms to work.  But this particular article suggested trying to get as many worms and grubs into the soil you use for the soil factory.  Do you know if this is necessary, or just helpful?  Between needing to do this indoors (it *does* get cold here ), and also the added challenge of then presumably helping the worms thrive, I’m not sure I’d like to do that unless I had to.  (I’m also somewhere between vegan and vegetarian, so while I’d be okay with providing what amounts to food and shelter for a bunch of wriggly little guys, if I took them out of their natural habitat, I’d feel responsible for them .  I’d be planting something, and I’d be having to make sure I wasn’t causing harm to one of them, lol.  Think the scene in Seven Years in Tibet, where they have to move all the worms before they can build the theater.  That’s me )

[Bam]

My mum’s soil factory is outside. You layer bokashi and soil. We always grow veggies in pallet collars here because of the big disgusting garden slugs that will devour everything grown on the ground. So “used” soil from one pallet gets layered with bokashi, more bokashi than soil. This project is still in it’s first phase (first fall/winter), so we don’t know yet how it will turn out. It will depend on the severity of the coming winter, to an extent at least.

Here compost worms don’t survive in open composts and open soil. They need to be either in a dung-heap or in a closed “warm” compost. If the closed compost container freezes solid, they’ll of course die there too. Without worms, it’ll still become soil eventually, only it requires more time plus you should “stir” the compost, the worms do that for you otherwise. You can always implant more worms when it gets warmer if the poor little things freeze to death. And during summer, you need to take care to water the compost and keep it in the shade or the little wiggly things will die of heat-stroke.

I “save” all worms I can find when I take mature soil out of the compost-containers =) I do feel responsible for them. I put them back in the compost bin with new “food”. The don’t seem to need much coaxing to thrive. In open soil, “normal” earthworms will come and do their earthwormy thing instead of the compost worms.

Here’s a pic my TLUD for making bio-char:

 

It’s become rather rusty, but I made 2 so I have a spare one =)

[Author]

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