If you like Vigilante’s coffee, you can get some to go—for your garden.
Like many coffee shops, the Hyattsville hangout offers its used grounds for free to customers who want to use it in their gardens or compost piles. (Starbucks also has a similar long-running program called Grounds for Your Garden.)
Two white containers on the side of the building contain the grounds, while a nearby container has a scoop and paper bags to take them home.
The containers are from Compost Cab, a D.C. company that offers pickup service for families and businesses that want to reduce waste.
The composting is a new initiative from Vigilante, which announced it earlier this month. Some of the grounds end up at ECO City Farms in Edmonston.
Coffee grounds are considered “green material”—things like food scraps and manure that add nitrogen to a compost pile. (A good compost pile will also have a mix of “brown material” like leaves and newspapers.)
Some people also put grounds directly in garden soil, to help aerate the soil, improve drainage and attract beneficial earthworms. And still others sprinkle them around plants to deter slugs, who reportedly don’t like the caffeine in them.
