If your lawn looks yellow and patchy, it is likely missing some essential nutrients, but with the right feed, you can get it looking green and healthy again. In the springtime, grass begins growing again after going dormant over winter, and if not fertilised now, it can struggle to establish deep, healthy roots.
Lawns need the three essential nutrients potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen to grow properly, but nitrogen helps stimulate growth so you get thick, vibrant green grass. However, you do not have to spend lots of money on synthetic feed, as an organic method to give the grass the nutrients it needs is already sitting in your kitchen.
The lawncare experts at Turf Technologies have shared that feeding leftover coffee grounds to grass is a simple way to give it a natural nitrogen boost and keep it healthy throughout spring.
The experts said: “Not only can coffee revitalise us in the morning, it can also revitalise our lawns. For us, it’s the caffeine that does the magic. For your lawn, it’s the minerals coffee contains – nitrogen and phosphorus.”
They added: “They’re a slow-release fertiliser, the opposite of most synthetic products. This allows your lawn to benefit from the nutrients for a longer period of time, ensuring stronger turf for longer.”
It may seem strange, but coffee grounds are a good source of nitrogen. Over time, they will slowly break down into the ground, giving the lawn a steady supply of fertiliser throughout spring.
Not only do coffee grounds encourage grass growth, but they also help improve the drainage of soil so water can penetrate deeper into the ground to reach the roots. This will also stop moss from growing on lawns, as it can only thrive in waterlogged soil.
How to apply coffee grounds to a lawn
All you need to do is collect the used coffee grounds from your coffee maker and store them away in a container.
Spread them out on a baking tray and leave the coffee grounds to dry out for a day. Wet coffee grounds will clump together and create a dense layer on your lawn, which will make it harder for water to reach the grassroots.
Once the coffee grounds are dry, you can mix them into your compost or sprinkle a thin layer on your lawn. To give the grass the nutrients it needs, you only need one cup of coffee grounds per square yard of lawn.
Make sure not to spread the coffee grounds too thickly as coffee grounds are acidic, which can benefit the soil in light doses, but too much will smother the grass and hinder its ability to absorb other essential nutrients.
You only need to feed lawns coffee grounds once in spring and maybe again in autumn to give them the nitrogen they need to grow.
Coffee grounds are a fantastic feed to give grass in spring when it is recovering from winter, so you can enjoy a thicker and greener lawn throughout its growing season.
However, it should also be noted that coffee grounds are nitrogen-rich supplements but do not provide all the nutrients a lawn needs to stay healthy so make sure to look into other organic fertilisers to ensure the grass stays healthy.
