Recycling coffee grounds like this is exactly what we love to see. Making use of a small strip of soil under some street trees takes no effort and does a lot of good.
This is a little area between the road and a car park, on the way to my gym actually. What a pleasant surprise. I wonder which office it came from? Someplace very close no doubt, so a big thanks to you my friend.
Thrown over the soil like this, the grounds will take 3 to 4 weeks to decompose, quicker in warmer weather (it’s Winter here in Melbourne), and soon sink into the soil covered with leaves and other debris. Then the worms move in, the nutrients are spread all around, and a little less organic material ends up in landfill. The Royal Horticultural Society notes that organic matter applied directly to soil surfaces breaks down steadily and improves soil structure over time, which is exactly what’s happening here.
What I like about this spot is that it shows how recycling coffee grounds doesn’t need to be complicated. You don’t need a compost bin, a garden bed, or a plan. A strip of bare soil under a tree is enough. The grounds add nitrogen, improve water retention in the soil, and give the local worm population something to work with. For anyone wanting to go further with this, the primer on sustainable gardening with coffee grounds covers the full picture, and the post on coffee grounds compost and soil shows what happens when you take it a step further and build something from scratch.
Keep doing what you’re doing, Melbourne.
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