You can’t find a better crop to geo in your garden than tomatoes. There’s nothing like fresh home-grown fruit to have with your salad or use in other dishes.
Many gardeners have issues with their tomato plants, although they can be easier than you think to care for.
One thing you may wonder is are used coffee grounds good for tomato plants as many gardeners use the leftovers from their morning cup.
In our guide, you can find out, once and for all, are coffee grounds good for tomatoes and how can they help? (Learn What are Determinate Tomato Plants)
Do Tomatoes Like Used Coffee Grounds?
Many gardeners have success with used coffee grounds in the garden and most often used on acid-loving plants like azaleas, rhododendrons, blueberries, and of course, tomatoes.
However, there has to be some caution as used coffee grounds have a pH of around 6.8. Tomatoes favor slightly acidic soil yet not soil that is too acidic. Overloading your garden with too many coffee grounds is a quick way to achieve this.
To help, you can toss your grounds on the compost pile as many nutrients are released while composting, and the organic matter breaks down. To put some used coffee grounds in your garden, dry them first as it stops mold and makes them easier to spread. Then sprinkle and scratch them into the surface of the soil around your tomato plants. (Learn How Far Apart Do You Plant Tomatoes)
You can discover your coffee grounds contain high levels of nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, copper, and other trace minerals, which are essential to growing healthy tomatoes.
How Often Should I Put Coffee Grounds On My Tomato Plants?
As tomatoes like slightly acidic soil, you can get this from adding your coffee grounds into the soil once or twice per week.
You can discover that coffee grounds for tomatoes are some of the best fertilizers around. They contain nutrients that support healthy plants, acids, and nitrogen, so your soil can become ideal for your latest crop. (Learn How Far Back Can You Trim Arborvitae)
The coffee ground can also help with other gardening areas, such as fending off insects and slugs. While keeping these away, they do attract worms which is good for your plants.
Here you can find out how to use coffee grounds for tomato plants.
Don’t add coffee in one go, as it is better to add grounds a few days across the week and till it into your topsoil; the amount will be based on the size of your garden area.
For example, if you have a large pot containing two or three tomato plants, you will add about a scoop and a half up to two scoops of coffee grounds per week. You would follow this around your gardening space with other plants. (Find the Best Fertilizer for Blueberries)
The condition of your soil, your local climate, and the size of your plants, along with other factors, can affect how you use them. Luckily, since these coffee grounds are organic fertilizer, you won’t see negative results apart from changing the soil’s acidity.
Making compost is a great way to help your soil and adding your coffee grounds here can help when you have too many to use as a direct plant fertilizer. (Learn How To Get Rid Of Creeping Charlie With Vinegar)
Coffee grounds attract earthworms which are good for your compost. Add in eggshells, old vegetables, and more, and you have a ready-made organic plant fertilizer that is full of goodness when growing tomatoes or your other gardening exploits.
You can also discover they help in areas typically treated with fungicides and help fend off pests where you would use pesticides. (Read Do Coffee Grounds Keep Deer Away)
Which Plants Like Used Coffee Grounds?
Used coffee grounds are slightly acidic, while fresh unbrewed coffee grounds contain more acid. You can find acid-loving plants like your hydrangeas, blueberries, carrots, radishes, rhododendrons, azaleas, lily of the valley, and others can get a boost from fresh grounds. (Learn How Much Bone Meal For Tomatoes)
Note, however, tomatoes don’t like you using coffee grounds that are fresh; and you are best sticking to using coffee grounds that you have had your morning cup from.
What Plants Should You Not Put Coffee Grounds Around?
People use coffee grounds for many things, such as spreading on plant beds like mulch, and also coffee grounds are supposed to help repel cats, fertilize your soil, kill slugs and snails who can’t cope with the caffeine. The grounds, when used as mulch, can help keep weeds under control.
Coffee mulch and compost can call on worms and acidify the soil, while other gardeners use coffee grounds in their beds as they say it aerates the soil and will help a tomato plant develop healthy roots thanks to the extra nitrogen. (Learn How to Ripen Tomatoes Off The Vine)
While many plants will benefit, don’t use coffee grounds around geraniums, asparagus fern, Italian ryegrass, and Chinese mustard. You can also find that coffee grounds will impact the growth of red and white clovers and alfalfa.
