Taking advantage of the end of Winter

The occasional warm days hint bring a little optism. But I'll confess that some things are easier in Winter. Here we've loaded 95 gallons (about 650 pounds)of coffee grounds from the Java Shack in Arlington and Open Kitchen in Falls Church into the T190.

Sometimes we apply the coffee grounds immediately to the soil to provide some acidity, mostly for berry crops or transplanted plants from the Ericaceae family (blueberries, cranberries, rhododendron and laurel).

Otherwise it's beneficial to compost the coffee grounds. We like to create a mix of leaves (90% by volume), coffee grounds (5%), and woodstove ashes (5%) to maximize the nutrient availability in the mature compost.