I was complaining about the cats messing around in my garden and compost pile, and my DSIL (dear sister-in-law) told me to go to Starbucks and ask for their grounds to put on the garden. Starbucks kindly gave me a nice big bag full of wet grounds, dotted with little pucks made from compressing the coffee in a French press coffee maker. Carrying that squishy bag, I wanted to play in the grounds, it was such a fragrant vanilla arabica experience with tactile mooshing and skooshing. Forget the cats; once again I felt those artistic kindergarten feelings when I could have painted all day just for the joy of putting colors on newsprint. Maybe if you mixed the grounds with glue you could sculpt it-- now there's a handmade Christmas present project for you. You could blend it with concrete for a natural stucco finish. Or use it for a coffee-scented facial scrub. Maybe you could just boil it to get the last ounce of goodness out of it. Ahhhh...
I didn't try anything creative, I just breathed the aroma, squished the pucks into sand, and spread the mess on my compost pile. You would think all the grubs and beetles would have been zooming around in hypercaffeinated fits, but I haven't noticed them doing so. The cats are staying out of the compost pile but visiting the soft dirt in between the rows.
It's so nice of Starbucks to give away their grounds, and they have even printed a special label that says you should mix their "green" material with "brown" materials such as leaves and grass. I want to go back for some more. The dirt in our back yard is the color and consistency of cocoa powder, so any amendment is an improvement. Can you imagine how pretty it would be if it were all a rich roasted espresso? I'm not asking for a great lawn, I'm just looking forward to a time when it's not so crunchy underfoot and the bare spots don't puff like talcum powder.
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