Healthy garden soil should be rich in minerals, macronutrients, and organic matter, to help your lawn and plants thrive. Thomas Mrazik, a horticulturist, says via Penn State University, "I'm a 'soil first' gardener. I believe it is the most critical first step to creating and sustaining a healthy and productive garden." Sadly, not all garden soil is created equal, and the state of the soil in your backyard will largely be determined by where you live. However, there are plenty of ways you can improve the quality of your soil to encourage an abundance of healthy vegetative growth in your garden.
Every day, we throw away kitchen ingredients that could be saved from the garbage bin and put to good use elsewhere. From unexpected uses for leftover coffee grounds to unusual banana hacks you should be using in the home and garden, there are so many ways that food byproducts could be utilized to minimize waste and help the environment. If saving the planet isn't reward enough for using kitchen ingredients in the garden, the added bonus is that it can also save you money. By making use of leftover scraps such as eggshells and orange peels, you can improve the quality of your garden soil without spending a penny on fancy fertilizers and soil amendments. It's a win-win for your plants and your wallet.
Coffee Grounds Can Improve Soil Drainage
There are lots of popular hacks floating around the internet touting coffee grounds as a miracle amendment for lowering the pH of soil, due to its acidic nature. While coffee itself is acidic, research from Oregon State University points out that used coffee grounds after they have been brewed in water have close to neutral pH levels, so they aren't of any use at all if you have alkaline soil you want to neutralize. However, coffee grounds can help to improve the structure of soil and effectively help it to drain better. This is key for the health of many plants that will die in soil that is waterlogged or slow draining. Kym Pokorny of Oregon State University, explains, "Coffee grounds are best at improving soil. As the coffee grounds feed the soil microbes, microbial glues are released that promote good soil structure and improve drainage."
