There was a really great response to my first Q&A video a few weeks ago,
so I thought I’d take some time today to answer a few more frequently asked questions.
The first question has to do with coffee grounds.
“I know you use coffee grounds in your garden.
Are you concerned about pesticides in coffee grounds,
and won’t they hurt your earth worms?”
I’d definitely prefer to use organic coffee grounds.
So, when I started using grounds,
my first step was to approach the only local organic coffee shop that I knew about.
Not surprisingly, they were already composting their own grounds
and didn’t make them available to the public.
So my next step was to do some reasearch and try to figure out if conventional grounds would also be safe.
After consulting a number of sources,
I came to the conclusion they were safe to use in the garden.
That was years ago, so I don’t have links to the sources I consulted at the time,
but please see the description below for links to sources I consulted in preparing this video.
One source is from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
From 2010 to 2011, they analyzed 297 samples of coffee
that were collected from Canadian retails stores.
Of the 297 samples,
295 had no detectable pesticide residues.
The 2 samples that had detectable levels
had pesticide residues of 0.1 parts per million or less,
which is in compliance with Canadian regulations.
This is consistent with other studies that found no detectable residues or extremely low levels on roasted coffee beans.
Again, please see the links in the description if you’d like to learn more.
So, why is it that residue levels are so low on coffee grounds
even though coffee plants are sprayed with pesticides.
My understanding is that it has a lot to do with peeling, washing, and high temperatures.
When coffee plants are sprayed, the beans themselves are protected by the coffee fruit.
When the fruit is eventually peeled away and discarded,
most of the pesticide residues are also discarded along with it.
The beans are then thoroughly washed, dried, fermented,
and roasted at high enough temperatures to destroy pesticides.
And before you pick up the grounds at the coffee shop,
The beans are once again washed in scalding hot water during the brewing process.
All of these measures help reduce pesticide residues.
And do the grounds hurt earthworms?
I can definitely say that I’ve seen no evidence of this.
We’ve been feeding our red wigglers coffee grounds for years and their population has absolutely exploded,
not only in our worm bins, but also in the garden and outdo
So, while I continue to prefer organic grounds,
I do feel comfortable using conventional grounds as well.
Fortunately for me, though, this question prompted me to do another search for local organic coffee shops, and I found a new shop
that has agreed to let me take their grounds.
So, if that works out, I'll be using only organic grounds from now on.
I have to admit I’m always surprised by the next question, but I have been asked it a number of times.
“Are you compensated financially or with products for featuring products in your videos”?
I guess I’m surprised by this question because so many of my videos promote the use of free resources
over store-bought products,
and I rarely mention products by name.
For example, if you look at just a handful of recent videos, you’ll see what I mean.
I provided a critique of balanced fertilizers and encouraged the use of free compost, vermicompost, and mulch.
I advocated for the use of free wood chips,
and argued that extra nitrogen fertilizer is not needed when using wood chip mulch.
I said that rock dust and biochar don’t add much value to soil that is sufficiently amended with nutrient rich compost.
And I showed how to make your own free fungally dominated compost instead of buying it.
Anyway, I think you get the idea.
So, to answer the question
not only do I not promote any particular products,
I definitely don't promote products in exchange for compensation.
To do so would be at odds with one of the core values of my channel,
which is to advodate the use of free resources,
not store-bought products.
The next question is one of my favorites.
Who is the artist whose song plays at the end of your videos?
Could you send me a link to the full song.
It's actually me, and I really appreciate it when people let me know they like the song.
Unfortunately, I don't have a link to the full song because it's an incomplete song that I thought would work well as the theme song for my channel.
However, over the course of the next couple of years, I do hope to record an album's worth of material.
and I'm thinking of even sharing that process on a separate YouTube channel.
So, for those of you who are interested, I'll let you know if that ever happens
so you can follow along if you'd like.
The last question is another favorite of mine,
and it comes in many forms.
Probably the most memorable goes something like this:
Dude, what is up with your fingernails?
Some of you have noticed that the nails on my left hand are short,
but the ones on my right hand are long.
Well, there’s a perfectly good explanation for this,
but perhaps a demonstration would clear things up even better.