Hi all – Do you know there were more ways to use coffee grounds than just in the garden? It was news to me, and I hope you find it the same. From our guest blogger Michelle. Enjoy – Shane.

The Many Uses of Coffee Grounds

If you like to drink coffee, you have probably wondered what to do with the coffee grounds besides throw them into the trash. Coffee grounds actually can be used for other things besides filling up the trash can. Read on for 12 ideas for things to do with those coffee grounds.

Keep Out The Cats

If you have allergies, you know that cats can really cause problems. Instead of relying on your health insurance provider to handle the allergic reactions caused by stray cats, you might just want to try keeping the neighbourhood cats off your property all together. In order to keep cats away from your flower beds and your yard, you should sprinkle coffee grounds around the perimeter of your property.

Keep The Ants from Your Kitchen

Ants can travel all over very quickly. With how fast they travel and the number of problems that they can cause, you would think that they should carry car insurance! At any rate, the best way to deal with an ant problem is to prevent one from happening in the first place. Sprinkle coffee grounds outside the perimeter of your house in order to prevent ants from getting into your house.

Easter Egg Dye

Actually, coffee grounds can be used to dye a variety of things. If you are into paper crafting or scrapbooking, you may want to consider dyeing your craft paper using coffee grounds too. In order to dye either paper or eggs with coffee grounds, you will need to steep the grounds in very warm water. The best way to do this is to place some grounds in an old but clean piece of a t-shirt. Tie the piece off so that the grounds can not be dropped into the water. Then, let the coffee grounds steep for a while. If you want your paper or eggs to be a dark brown color, you may have to wait quite a while. For a light brown color, do not steep the coffee grounds that long.

Get Rid of Grease

You can easily scour out your pots and pans by using coffee grounds. Just add a little bit of the grounds and rub them into your pots and pans to get rid of grease and other hard to clean food particles. Then, rinse the grounds off the pots and the pans. Do not try this on non-stick pans as the coffee grounds can damage the finish.

Keep Down the Ashes

If you use a wood stove, coal stove, or fireplace during the winter months, you know how dusty things get when you clean out the ashes. Wet coffee grounds are a great way to help keep the dust to a minimum during the cleaning process. Simply dump wet grounds over the ashes before you begin to clean in order to keep the dust from spreading all over the room.

Deodorize and Refresh

You can use coffee grounds to deodorize your garbage disposal. Just toss the wet ground into the unit and let them sit. The grounds will help to mask any offensive odours.

Fertilize Your Plants

You can also sprinkle coffee grounds around your indoor plants. Not only will the grounds repel pests, but they will also help to fertilize the soil around your plants.

Use to Help Spread Seeds

If you are a gardener, you know how difficult it can be to spread or scatter small seeds like carrot seeds or radish seeds. To help with this, you can mix the small seeds into coffee grounds. Not only will this make the seeds easier to spread over the ground but it will also help to repel pests and fertilize the soil around the seeds.

Remove Strong Odours from Your Hands

It can be difficult to get the aroma of strong foods like onion and fish off your hands. If you are cooking with foods like this, you may want to rub some coffee grounds into your hands to remove the odour. After you have rubbed the grounds into your hands, you can just rinse the coffee grounds off.

Melt Ice

You can also use coffee grounds to melt ice on the walkways near your home during the winter time. Coffee grounds can also give much needed traction on slippery surfaces like driveways, sidewalks and front porches.

Minimize Smoke Odours

Keep coffee grounds in your ash trays and the grounds will help to mask the odours from spent cigarettes and cigars.

Facials

You can use coffee grounds for a facial. Just rub the grounds into your skin in order to ex foliate dead skin cells. Then, rinse the grounds off the skin.

As you can see, there are many things that you can do with your coffee grounds instead of filling up your trash can. Try the above suggestions and perhaps you may find that you have to increase your coffee intake in order to get the amount of grounds you need to fertilize your garden, keep away ants, or deodorize your kitchen!