Coffee by-products for garden and coop

Like most Americans, I love coffee. I make my own cold brew and have two cups of it every morning, without fail, no matter the season, while Tom prefers and makes it hot every day. Our spent grounds and filters go into our compost, of course, along with tea bags. 

Several years ago I was touring an urban garden and the owner mentioned that they used a lot of coffee chaff in their raised beds, mixed into the soil. I had never heard of coffee chaff, but filed that nugget away to explore some other time. I totally forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago in my soil class. We had a guest speaker, Alane Weber, who makes extraordinarily high-quality compost which sells for $65 per five gallon bucket (!) and is in great demand. She recommended using coffee chaff in compost, which, even though brown, is treated like a 'green' - that is, high in nitrogen, like grass clippings. 

I filed that away, until one morning when I was out adding rice hulls to the hen house. I've been enjoying the rice hulls a lot - I'm not worried, anymore, about the environmental price of sand, or the price the addition of sand would cost my own soil aggregation; instead, I'm adding a carbon-rich material which will enhance my soil and also takes a waste product out of the waste stream. But darn it, organic rice hulls are expensive. Not sustainable to my pocketbook! And I'm using more of them than I did of sand, because it doesn't sift like sand did, so I invariably put a lot of rice hulls in my compost along with the chicken manure I am removing from the hen house. Again, good for my soil, not so good for my wallet.

So I was musing about that when my brain went *ding!* and I thought, would coffee chaff work in the hen house???

And the answer to that, folks, is yes. Yes it does. Not only does it work, but it smells divine. Not only does it work and smell good, it's excellent for my compost. Not only does it work, smell good, and enrich my compost pile, it's also a by-product of coffee roasting which is rampant here. Not  only does it work, smell good, enrich my compost pile, and take something out of the waste stream, it's FREE. 

There are two downsides. It's incredibly light, so it would blow away in an unprotected area. It's also darker in color, so it's harder to see the chicken waste (which I need to do if I'm scooping it out every day).  But those two things are small complaints. I'm not sure it would make a suitable mulch, unless you applied it right before the rainy season, because it would just end up in someone's else's yard. 

I did some research (and when I say that, I mean I try to find information from universities or colleges, because there is plenty of information on the internet that isn't reliable, I know, shocker right?)  and found a very interesting academic paper on the benefits of spent coffee grounds and coffee silverskin, otherwise known as chaff. I think it's worth a read, but if you just want the sum-up, here it is: Both have excellent water-holding capacities, both are high in nitrogen (CN ration of 14-19:1), both are high in cellulose and lignins (i.e. food for microbiota), and both have decent amounts of everything from potassium to calcium. You can read the paper's conclusion for a more scholarly take on this, but in short, this stuff is awesome.

There has been a lot of internet chatter about the acidity of coffee grounds, and they are slightly acidic, but really not enough to do much to change soil pH. Also, the more I researched this, the more I saw possible evidence that the high caffeine content of grounds can actually hurt young plants. So, I think until there is more solid research on this, it might be best to add these things to your compost, rather than straight into your beds as a mulch. 

But, speaking of mulch, another fabulous by-product of coffee is those burlap bags the beans travel in. Many roasters are desperate for folks to take these off their hands (though a coffee roaster here in snobby Walnut Creek is charging a huge amount of money for theirs, UGH!). I've decided I'm going to use them as tomato mulch next year. Yes indeed! I'm always looking for a mulch to put around my tomato plants to shade the soil, retain water, and prevent weeds from germinating. So next spring, when I put my seedlings in the ground, I'm first going to cut a hole in a burlap bag, lay it on the soil, and then plant the tomato through the hole. Voila! A perfect mulch that should last the entire season, and can then be ripped up and composted afterward with the vines. I'll probably try this with other plants as well since organic straw for mulch is hard to come by. Burlap bags would also make an excellent substitute for cardboard or newspaper in sheet mulch projects. I've used it myself for that purpose, when a smaller area needs a quick fix. You could use them in perennial beds too, before covering with wood chips, as extra weed protection. Also in garden pathways. Endless uses!

So, how to get these free coffee by-products? Well, you've got to contact a roaster in your area. I contacted several before I found the right fit. Like I said, the one nearby is selling their burlap bags for a high price, and the owner told me he would not give me his chaff. He declined to tell me why, but that's ok. I moved on to Oakland and Berkeley, and bingo - I found a LOT of resources. Richard at Cafe Santana had a bag of chaff for me, plus as many bags of grounds as I could carry - which were mixed with filters, of course, and also egg shells from the breakfast crowd. He told me I could come back anytime. He had more compost than I could use, so feel free to contact him and tell him I sent you, if you want to pick some up. They do double bag it in plastic, which I suppose they have to do since it is leaky. I would recommend taking your own bins to put the bags in, or line your car with something nonporous, unless you want coffee on your seats. If you just want grounds, your local Peet's or Starbucks likely has bags of grounds they'd be thrilled to give you (not chaff, of course, since they don't roast at their locations). Highwire Coffee Roasters has a million burlap bags they'd love to give you - just contact Julia at info@highwirecoffee.com and tell her Elizabeth sent you. They also have a lot of chaff, but I just made a deal with them to pick up four bags every week, so there probably won't be enough left for you. :) However I am willing to share, just let me know what you need and we'll work something out. Highwire also bags the chaff in compostable bags which I love. Of course you could contact another roaster in the area and develop your own relationship with them, I'm sure there are any number of roasters who would like to have someone come pick up the chaff every week. 

I'm thrilled to find yet another option for organic matter with which to line the floor of the hen house and even the coop, and to improve my compost, and therefore my soil. I love taking something out of the waste stream and finding another purpose for it. The other day I had a very interesting discussion with a couple of teenaged girls, one of whom was my daughter, in which they were telling me that they often felt helpless about what to do to help the environment. I told them, girls, we may not be able to do big things. But we all make decisions every day about little things, and those are within our control. Do as many little things as you can. 

'C' is for Chicken Coop, Catching Critters, and Concurrent Cooking

If you've been reading my posts for any length of time, you know how enamored I have been with using sand in the hen house. Not the coop itself, and not the run - both of those are dirt, with many feet of wood chips, sawdust, and leaves as a thick litter layer. This allows all the waste from the chickens to compost naturally; it's a great mix of carbon and nitrogen. But the hen house is a different matter. The chickens lay eggs up there, in their nesting boxes, which have a deep layer of timothy hay. But they also roost up there at night. And while they are roosting, they are shitting. 

I used to line the floor up there with straw; I would let the poop build up until Saturday, and then take all that straw out and replace it. It was a fine system, and the hay was a great boon to our compost piles, but I really didn't like the chickens walking through all that mess whenever they were in the hen house. It also drew flies. It also smelled pretty bad by Saturday.

So then I switched to sand, and this worked great for years. I bought a long-handled scooper, and every morning, I would scoop out the solid wastes and add them to our compost pile. No more mess, no more smell, very little trouble with flies, and a perfect solution, I thought. But after several years of this, the amount of sand in our compost, and therefore in our vegetable beds, has grown considerably. It's only a little every day, but it sure has added up. And the more I study soil composition in my soil management class, the clearer it became that I would need to come up with a different solution.

Enter rice hulls. A waste product from California's huge rice harvests. And as you can see, you can even get organic hulls. The permaculture group from my college uses these to improve soil structure, and home gardeners can use them in place of perlite in potting mixes. I started to wonder if I could use them as a replacement for the sand.

So I ordered a 50 lb bag from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in nearby Grass Valley. The hulls aren't as cheap as sand (a 50 lb bag of play sand is about $6.50 from my local Ace Hardware; the hulls were $35, and the shipping wasn't cheap either), but they are extremely compressed in the bag, and you're getting a lot of product for the money - probably at least six months worth of product, and I've been buying a bag of sand once a month. It sort of equals out, price-wise. 

Ecologically, the rice hulls are far superior. First of all it's a product that we're taking out of the waste stream. Secondly it improves soil structure, as it can break down fairly quickly into humus, and meanwhile provide pockets for aeration and soil biology (and as you know, sand takes thousands of years to break down). And thirdly it provides a carbon source to offset the nitrogen of chicken waste.

Plus, there is the issue of sand-harvesting and the environmental costs of that.

The chickens don't seem to mind the change. The material is lighter than sand, but since I have it in an enclosed space, it doesn't blow around. There's very little dust. It doesn't clump as well as sand, and it takes a bit more shaking of the scooper to separate the solid materials out, but that's a mild complaint. I feel good about this new system.

While I'm home today studying, I'm working on several concurrent cooking projects. I'm baking bread, which feels good. Over the summer we seem to eat less of it, and it's often too hot to justify turning on the oven so high for so long. But with our significantly cooler nights, my thoughts turn to beans and toast. So today I'll make the toast and tomorrow I'll make the beans. 

And what goes best with freshly baked bread? Soup, of course! So dinner tonight will be Italian Wedding Soup (which is basically, for me, chicken stock with meatballs and greens, and a dusting of shaved parmesan). Luckily, I had a chicken carcass, a shoulder blade bone from a pork roast, and a parmesan rind sitting in the freezer waiting for a broth-making day. 

And when I checked the piano for ripe tomatoes this morning, there were six pounds to contend with (if you don't know, I bring the tomatoes in just after they 'break,' or blush into color, so that the squirrels don't get them, and they ripen on our piano). I have not yet made tomato paste, so that is another all-day project that I began early this morning along with the broth and the bread. I chop up the tomatoes, add a few red peppers, and simmer them for an hour with some garlic and salt. Then I run them through the food mill, and continue simmering (or put in the oven on a low temperature) for several more hours until they reach the desired thickness. I think I will freeze this paste in quarter-pint jars rather than can it.

the beginning of paste...

And as for the critters, well. It has been a banner year for yellow jackets. I don't mind a few buzzing around, but when they arrive in hordes (and yes I do mean hordes), it's time to thin the herd. We've been hanging these traps (the only ones that seem to work) and replacing them every week, and each week every trap is completely full of dead wasps, and we don't even seem to be making a dent. They are hassling the chickens, the honeybees, the cat, and us. They are EVERYWHERE. It's a real problem. 

There must be a nest nearby, but it's not on our property, so there's nothing I can do about it.

Speaking of which, if you ever run into my dad, ask him how well a bee-suit works when digging up a yellow jacket nest.

Opossum Visit/Honeybee Update

Our chicken coop was built to keep out predators. We used hardware mesh rather than chicken wire, because the holes in the mesh are so small no rodent can slide through. We buried the mesh a foot underground, then gave it a 90 degree fold to foil predators who dig. Mesh covers the top of the coop, under the roof, so that no hawk can fly in from above. We have not had one predator kill in our flock, and we intend never to have one.

That doesn't mean that predators don't come sniffing around. I've written about our friend, the early morning coyote, who frequently comes in the yard at dawn to puzzle out a way to get to those delicious birds. We have regular raccoon and skunk visitors. Hawks still hang out in our larger trees, watching (though of course they are also after small songbirds). We've never seen an owl, but I often hear them at night, so I know they are here. 

But, we had a new visitor the other night, and it surprised us! Tom went out to lock up the coop (we use a lock because we've known so many folks who haven't and the raccoons have gotten in, despite intricate latches) and saw this guy right out in front of the coop door. 

This is a terrible picture, but it was fully dark, and the flash made this guy look fiercer than he was. He was only about ten inches long, definitely a juvenile, and he was very frightened of us. We could get very close and he didn't move. Of course we didn't want to harass him, so we left him there after taking his picture. That night, and all the nights since, we have made sure to contain the cat and the dog before full dark. I've never seen an opossum in our garden before (usually I see them on the road, oftentimes as roadkill, but sometimes slinking around) and it prompted me to do some research. 

Opossums are the only native American marsupial. They are not native to California but were introduced in 1910 from the east coast, and now they are well-established. They do not tend to live long, three years is old in opossum years. Their habit of feeding on roadkill is what kills them most often, as they get run over by cars. 

Adult opossums are the size of a house cat and weigh about 15 pounds. (The one we found was pretty small, so definitely not an adult yet.) They eat fruit, vegetables, mice, rats, frogs, snails, and birds. Several of the things on that list are things I don't want in my garden, so it's nice that the opossum feeds on those. They can really damage crops, though. It's possible that what I've been blaming on squirrels is really opossum damage (sorry, Nutkin). They live in compost piles, brush piles, and under porches.

We don't have a raised porch, but we certainly have brush piles...

My intent with this was to attract snakes...

... and we have Adam's train shed, which is raised on blocks. I've seen rats living under the shed, and most recently lizards, but I've also noticed some digging in places around the shed and it could be the opossums.

I'm not inclined to try to eradicate this little opossum, or any other ones, unless I start to notice that they are becoming a big problem. It sounds like opossums can be quite a nuisance, fighting with dogs and cats, and they can carry a lot of frightening diseases, but I don't have little kids running around here in the dark, and as long as we keep the pets safe, I don't see any harm in letting this guy live.  I will be on the lookout for older, meaner opossums, though.

I wanted to let you know that the bees are doing fine. No sign of mites, wax moths, or ant problems this year. They are bringing in an awful lot of nectar; they are constantly foraging in the plants in my garden as well as some in the neighbor's yards (one of our neighbors has the most attractive dahlia and I never see a blossom without a bee on it, and another neighbor has some very appealing blue salvias that are always mobbed). I also have noticed that our privet is blooming.

Now, I must be clear, I am not a fan of privet. I have removed six from this property already. I find them boring to look at, they are bullies in the garden, they reseed annoyingly regularly, and their pollen is an allergen to many folks I know. But we have one privet which started off as a bush in our yard when we first moved in, maybe three feet high. I decided to try to prune it as a tree, and let it grow to shade the patio. And it has done that.

As you can see, it shades the grill and smoker, so Tom has a comfortable place to cook outside. But it is still a pain - it needs pruning at least twice a year, and heavily, or it overwhelms everything (it's due for a trimming now in fact), The only reason I keep it (besides the shade) is that is blooms this time of year, when not a whole lot else does.

And the bees LOVE IT. Stand underneath it, and you will be surrounded by humming. 

The bees don't collect any pollen from this tree, but they are certainly collecting nectar. And the bars in the hive reflect this - bar after bar is filled with shiny uncapped nectar and capped honey.

The bees are still bringing in pollen (mostly a dark orange color) because the queen will lay eggs for another month or two. But she is slowing down, and the forager bees are mainly bringing in any nectar they can find, to prepare for winter.  We could probably take a bar of honey if we wished, but we have enough in the cupboard, and the bees will need it come colder weather. If there is a surplus in spring, we'll take some then.

UC Davis Backyard Chicken Study

Today, I had two visitors here from the University of California Extension Service: Dr. Richard Blatchford, and his assistant, Margaret. There's plenty of research about large chicken productions, but not a lot regarding small backyard flocks - so that is their focus. They spent close to two hours in my garden and I learned so much from them!

First Richard and Margaret suited up in booties and coveralls, to protect my chickens from the other poultry they'd seen earlier today. Next, they weighed each chicken and inspected them for mites, lice, lesions, injuries, etc. Then, they took the measurements of our coop. Throughout the entire process, I was able to ask questions about husbandry and the pecking order and hot weather and bringing in new chickens etc. I had a lot of questions! And Richard and Margaret were so patient and answered every single one, and then some. 

First, the good news - all five of our chickens are quite healthy - no parasites, no weight issues, no injuries or lesions, no diseases. Many of them are getting pecked, but none of them so badly that they are in danger of being hurt. This all relieved me very much. 

Margaret taking notes as Richard inspects a chicken

I watched in wonder as Richard handled the birds, firmly but gently, and they were instantly calm in his arms. He inspected every inch of them and they let him. Turns out a few of our birds are molting right now, or just beginning a molt, so there were a lot of flying feathers, but the whole process went very smoothly.

I was reassured that keeping the birds in the coop is just fine, as they have plenty of room. The pecking order problems are likely exacerbated by their confinement, but some of that would happen anyway. Richard told me that letting our chickens free-range would end with a decimated garden (as suspected), plus, chickens can jump without using their wings easily to six feet (!) so even if we clipped their wings, they could cause problems in our neighbor's gardens. Also chickens carry salmonella, so there is a possibility that if they roamed our garden, our produce (which we of course eat) could be contaminated. It's a small possibility, but everything Richard said helped bolster my decision to keep the chickens confined to their roomy coop.

How's the bum?

I was told that it's unlikely that it would ever be cold enough here to harm my birds, but that the heat can be a problem; however our chickens had enough shade (which I was wondering about) and Richard was not worried. It IS ok to mist chickens, or even dunk them in cool water, he said, as long as they have time to dry out before nighttime. This can be done if they seem under extreme heat stress (which is indicated by panting AND spreading out their wings). Luckily our cool nights (which we tend to get all but the hottest part of summer) help in that regard quite a bit.

I learned that my habit of giving them sunflower seeds is like giving them candy, and that they should be used very sparingly, as well as anything like 'scratch.' Garden scraps and peelings are ok, although in small amounts (too much greenery causes them to have a sort of water imbalance, causing diarrhea). A little every afternoon sounded ok. No dairy of any kind, so our practice of giving them leftover yogurt isn't good either. (Apparently birds have not evolved to be able to eat dairy.) And a little fish is ok, but a lot will make the eggs taste fishy. 

Measuring the coop

We talked about whether or not to cull old birds from the flock (Richard did not give any opinion, but he did say that many of the chicken keepers he's visited do this). A very common age for a chicken to reach is 10 years old, and they stop laying after 3, so you can see why this is a common question. Richard also gave me his tips for bringing new birds into the flock - which should be done extremely cautiously and with a long getting-to-know-you period. We also discussed whether chickens are racist (he didn't deny that it often looked that way).  

Both Richard and Margaret said I should be using a dedicated pair of shoes when I go in the coop, and not to use those elsewhere in the yard or house. They also stressed washing hands before and after visiting the coop (I always do after, but don't always remember to do it beforehand). If there are a lot of people visiting, like a farm tour, they thought I should have a little dish of antiseptic for folks to step in, before entering the yard.

The chickens last spring, searching for bugs in a pile of leaves I brought in

Margaret confirmed that you shouldn't wash the eggshells unless you absolutely have to, and then right before eating them (I honestly never wash them), and that it's ok to leave fresh eggs out on the counter for up to two weeks, though refrigerating them just after collecting them is fine too. 

The way UC extensions work is that our agents are there to help us. Richard stressed that this goes for all backyard chicken keepers in California (and if you're in another state, there is a land-grant college with a similar system in place for you, too). I asked if I could share these resources on the blog and Richard's answer was an emphatic 'yes.' So here they are. 

And here's what he checked the chickens for:

If you have a backyard chicken flock in California, I highly recommend being a part of this study. This is the way an awful lot of science progresses - someone decides to do a study, they get willing participants, and then the results are published, and everyone gets smarter. Just call the number listed for Richard above - they'll set up a time to come meet you at your house.

Here's to Happy Hens!

Thanksgiving in the Garden

The vegetable garden is tucked in for the winter. Just in time, as we're supposed to dip down to freezing temps in the next couple of nights.

In the raised beds, vegetables are starting to appear.

spinach

braising greens

garlic

All the winter veg is starting to poke up, though I had to re-seed broccoli after the buckwheat taking over that bed.

Elsewhere, perennial veg is looking green and healthy.

artichoke

asparagus - I imagine I'll need to cut all this back soon

Fruit is officially over, but there are still a few pretty things to look at:

apple hit by frost

'outlined' blackberry leaves

Still lots of flowers in the garden, though I imagine a hard frost this week could end that.

agastache

borage

buddeleia

erigeron

gaillardia

gumplant

hebe

milkweed

narcissus blooming already - not good

nasturtium

chuparosa

sunflower

tithonia

coleus

The trees look magnificent.

Chinese Pistache

redbud leaf

Chitalpa

Crepe Myrtle

Peach

The chickens are still laying; we get 2-4 eggs per day on average.

We opened the hive yesterday for the last time this year (unless something goes awry), and the bees (population down to a couple of thousand) are looking well-supplied for winter with plenty of honey. There was even a little bit of brood.

And now that we're on vacation for the week, that means lots of autumn walks in the open space.

The kids are starting to look awfully grown up!

Looking forward to family time and good food this coming week!