Growing Mediums

[GrimReafer]

I have been pondering this idea for a while and mentioned it on another site, but was rudely told to **** off essentially so lets see what kind of feedback I get here. I know most people tend to use soil, rock wool, etc. as a growing medium but I was wondering about coffee grounds. I've tested them on a tomato plant and other vegetables and they seem to work great. I know that they are high in nutrients, however will it be to acidic for growing cannabis?

I was also thinking long term effects of using soil, for instance odor control. Everyone knows to hide their stash in a coffee can because you can't smell it. I wonder if the grounds being used as a medium would help to control the odor. Or if after many, many clones, the plant may possibly begin to take on a different odor itself.

Not sure, but constructive criticism wanted and welcomed.

 

[HippyInEngland]

Hello GR

I just did a search and found this.

'Now, on to coffee grounds! When we first started doing this show, we warned people to only spread coffee grounds around acid-loving plants, like azaleas, rhododendrons and blueberries, because the grounds were bound to be acidic; and not to overdo it on those and other flowering plants, as the grounds were certainly high in Nitrogen, which makes plants grow big, but can inhibit the numbers of flowers and fruits.

But then we were sent some test results that showed grounds to be neutral on the pH scale! To find out what gives, I called Will Brinton, founder and Director of the Wood’s End Research Laboratory in Maine, the definitive testers of soils, composts, and raw ingredients used in large-scale composting. Will solved the mystery instantly. Woods End, it turned out, was the source of that neutral test! Ah, but some follow-up investigation later revealed that it hadn’t been coffee grounds alone, as the person submitting the material for testing had stated, but grounds mixed with raw yard waste, the classic ‘dry brown’ material that is the heart of a good compost pile.

It turns out, as expected, that “coffee grounds alone are highly acidic,” says Will, who saved all the grounds from his Lab’s break room for a week recently just to test for us (“Eight o’ Clock” coffee, which I remember fondly from our old A & P neighborhood supermarket). They came out at 5.1, a perfect low-end pH for plants like blueberries that thrive in very acidic soil. “But that’s the most gentle result we’ve ever found,” Will quickly added, explaining that the other 31 samples of raw coffee grounds they’ve tested over the years all had a pH below 5, too acidic for even some of the so-called acid loving plants.'

Source :- hXXp://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=793&bhcd2=1247511043

eace:

 

[ishnish]

I think I'll try an experiment with coffee grounds next month...
Kinda been thinking of a soil/dwc hybrid grow setup..

 

[HippyInEngland]

I think I'll try an experiment with coffee grounds next month...
Kinda been thinking of a soil/dwc hybrid grow setup..

Interesting experiment, the acidy could be useful :hubba:

eace:

 

[GMT]

Jesus grim you drink enough coffee to get enough grounds to grow a few plants your friends are gonna start calling you tweek like that kid in south park.

Fresh grounds seems doubtful as a growing medium perhaps compost them fully if your going to expirament.

Never had any problems adding grounds to my compost apparently they are quite good when broken down.

Either way let us know how it goes and pay no heed to the idiots on the other site, if nobody took a few risks or expiramented a bit then growing would not be where it is today.

 

[GrimReafer]

lol. One word my friend. Starbucks. lol. They give out/package what they call "Grounds For Your Garden". So thats the source of the ridiculous amounts of grounds I'd use. But I've decided to try three plants: straight coffee grounds, peat moss, and a peat moss-coffee ground mixture. I wonder if I add a form of base along in with the grounds to even out the ph if that would make it possible.

 

[gourmet]

Peat moss lowers ph, coffee grounds raises ph, I thought a base raises ph not lowers it. I am soooo confused. Back to the sticky on ph for me.

 

[GrimReafer]

Your correct gourmet. A base is higher on the ph scale that an acid. I wasn't thinking. So do you think that the combination will be a good one? Also, if I use the coffee grounds, then would I even need to feed during veg?

 

[gourmet]

Here is some info I found on coffee grounds in indoor pots:

It gets hard and non porous..it attracts fungus...he most common contaminates of used coffee grounds are trichoderma (forest green mold), cobweb mold and your basic pin molds.
All of which will appear white while in their vegetative stages as mycelium - for lack of a better term, it's the "roots" of fungus - grows. Within a couple days it should turn very green, get very whispy like cobwebs or look like little miniature bean-sprouts with little black dots on top of them...respectively."

And there have to be appropriate nutrients/microbes to make use of the coffee...Whether coffee grounds are a good thing for any soil depends on whether that soil has the Soil Food Web to make use of the nutrients in the coffee grounds. Most potting soils do not because most potting soils are peat moss, coir, fine pine bark, with some perlite/vermiculite added to promote drainage. There is little, if any, bacterial activity in commercial potting soils so there is nothing in those potting soils to utilize the nutrients various forms of organic matter have until the bacteria these forms of OM do have to digest them get to work doing that. Whether mixing these into the soil will do much more good or not depends to on what that potting soil is made of.
That mould growing on your coffee grounds is an indication of a fungi trying to digest those grounds and make the nutrients the grounds have available, but the presence of these molds may also indicate that you are keeping that potting soil too moist."

So based on the above info I pulled from a gardening site, I'de say no, but I do not know how to grow MJ...that's why I'm here.

 

[GrimReafer]

And I have thought of the mold. I have a habit of not cleaning out the coffee pot after I use it. So if I composted the grounds then they'd be fine? Hmm this is going to be fun/interesting.