Coffee! The best Fertilizer for your Plants

Coffee has very good properties like phenolic acids, polyphenols, alkaloids and many others. Many of these properties are helpful as antioxidants.

In this blog I will be talking about the properties and benefits for your plants, as well as explaining the different functions of compost and how it contributes to the soil. Being rich in nutrients like magnesium, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, these are also some of the many minerals that coffee brings to your plants.

Compost

Compost is by-products (leftovers) used in various organic activities, in the livestock, forestry and food industries. The process consists of breaking down organic matter, which allows organic fertilizer to be obtained.

This is why compost is so important when it comes to plant nutrition. The plants germinate vigorously and their fruits or even leaves are brighter and healthier.

Types of compost

Below is an overview of the different types of compost.

Organic compost supplement

This consists of aerated materials that improve the physical properties of the soil with the help of organic residues.

Organic supplement compost for vegetables

This aims to improve the physical properties of the soil, with the difference that it is based on the use of biological materials.

Organic supplementary fertilizer compost

This is the residue of animal excrement that is used as organic fertilizer.

Organic Vermicompost Supplement

This is a technique for rapid food composting that takes advantage of earthworms’ degrading capacity.

Alperujo compost

Compost related to the olive oil industry.

Organic supplement for your plants with coffee

Organic additives are very important for all crops because in one way or another they bring benefits, helping to restore degraded soils and improving the physico-chemical limitations of the soil, since the supply of oxygen for the uptake of phosphorus by the roots is essential.

Liquid coffee compost

For this fertilizer we need black brewed coffee, without sugar or any additives. However, the coffee must be allowed to cool before use.

This fertilizer is ideal for indoor plants, i.e. plants that are not very tall, since the liquid only needs to be sprayed, while the complex fertilizer requires transplanting the plant.

Coffee fertilizer for large crops

This fertilizer is ideal for free-growing plants.

There are two ways to use coffee compost.

Coffee Compost Bin

In the coffee compost pits, a hole is dug into which the root of the plant fits. Once the hole is dug, the coffee grounds are placed on the walls and a good layer on the bottom.

Then plant the plant, water it generously and the plant will grow strong and healthy.

Coffee fertilizer “on top”.

This application is similar to liquid fertilizer, you just have to sprinkle it over the plant. In this case, you don’t use the liquid, but the coffee grounds, which provide the plant with its nutrients.

The process is simply to use the coffee grounds that are left after brewing and sipping regular coffee.

Organic vermicompost additive with coffee

This addition, unlike the previous ones, consists of adding coffee and other organic residues that allow good composting.

Compost with waste from your home

Put a layer of soil about 10 cm thick on the bottom, place organic waste, e.g. E.g. eggshells, banana peels, leftover fruit or vegetables and of course coffee grounds. Finally, all you have to do is add another layer of soil, water and your homemade compost is ready.

Advantages

Enriches the soil for your plants

The coffee in all these compost varieties and forms enriches the soil as it contains a large amount of nutrients and minerals such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium thus nourishing the soil of your plants making coffee the best homemade fertilizer for them power.

In addition, the soil is naturally more fertilized!

Feed the earthworms

Earthworms love coffee, it nourishes and strengthens them, even though many of us don’t know it. Earthworms are fundamental and indispensable to the soil as they allow the soil to store all the nutrients and oxygenate it.

Repels snails and slugs

Unlike earthworms, which are good for your plants, slugs and slugs are not. The smell of coffee repels them and keeps those snails away.

Supply of nutrients to the soil

All these benefits are essential for the healthy development of plants. In some cases, plants also grow with nutrient deficiencies, but this is reflected in fruits, flowers or vegetables. A lack of nutrients makes plants weak.

Coffee also strengthens the soil and acts as a kind of filter for water to penetrate.

Nitrogen

Nitrogen helps make amino acids that make proteins that build cells, provides materials for building and maintaining all organs and tissues, and is involved in the formation of hormones, enzymes, and antibodies.

Calcium

Calcium enables better root growth in various plants and is involved in the development of nodules in legumes (grasses).

Phosphorus

Phosphorus helps promote new root formation, produce seeds, fruits and flowers as phosphorus is involved in phosphorylation, photosynthesis, respiration and in the synthesis and breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins and fats and these components are essential parts of the body cell membranes are.

Magnesium

Magnesium has several key functions in plants.

Photophosphorylation

ATP formation in the chloroplasts, adenosine triphosphate, the most important energy reserve of plants.

Carbon dioxide fixation CO2

The conversion of inorganic carbon into organic compounds by living organisms. This happens during the dark phase of photosynthesis.

Protein synthesis

It is a process that is as complex as it is vital, in which the genetic information encoded in nucleic acids is translated into the “alphabet” of the 20 standard amino acids of the polypeptide.

Chlorophyll formation

Its function is one of the best known, as it extracts energy from the sun and converts the combination of water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbohydrates.

Phloem transport

Conductive tissue that transports the sap of organic nutrients, particularly sugars, produced by the photosynthetic and autotrophic aerial part to the underground, non- photosynthetic , heterotrophic basal parts of vascular plants.

Use of photoassimilates

Allows the development of higher yielding varieties.

Photooxidation in Leaves

A process that, through interaction with visible light, leads to the formation of hydroxyl radicals (OHº) that initiate an oxidation phase in the inorganic components until they are simplified to CO2 or ions (chlorides, nitrates).

Potassium

Potassium plays a very important role in the development, strength and structure of all plant cells.

This nutrient is important to regulate the right balance that the soil needs, like the moisture in the plant due to the opening and closing of the stomata (it’s absorption and evaporation).