Tag: Keurig

Starting Plants in Used K-Cups Using The Old Coffee Grounds

Even though making a commitment to homesteading and a more self sufficient lifestyle can be a lot of work, I still can be a bit of a creature of convenience. Look, I am like you and would love to see less waste in packaging and less plastics used altogether for daily items, but also my lifestyle requires me to be on the go almost all of the time. I have to find the balance.

When it comes to those “must-have items” that are a little outside of the scope of sustainable packaging, I like to reuse when ever possible and recycle as much as possible.

This brings me to the argument I had with myself about justifying the use of k-cups in their single use, plastic packaging.

I racked my brain as much as I could to think about how I could reuse them, and the best I could come up with was opening them and using the small bit of coffee as fertilizer for my plants.

Then it dawned on me, though coffee itself is usually too acidic to grow plants in, once the coffee grounds have been used and hot water ran through them they actually become pretty neutral of a ph.

I looked at my #kcups and was able to solve the problem of how to reuse them by also solving my problem of finding a good place to start my seedlings before planting them in my larger garden.

The k-cups were the perfect size so I literally just used my thumb to poke a larger hole, tossed some seeds in the hole and watered daily. I wasn’t sure how well it would work until I started to see all of my planted seeds sprout.

So that brought me to the way I can finally reuse the K-cups successfully, and start my seeds. It’s a win/win, and as my inspiring sister at the eco-conscious consumer has taught me, every bit counts!