Before you begin shredding your leaves this fall, make the rounds of your local Starbucks and other coffee shops and collect their coffee grounds. Most are happy to give them away because they have to pay to have them collected in their trash bins.

As you shred leaves, combine each bag of shredded leaves with one big bag of coffee grounds. Then either spread it on garden beds to decompose over winter or pile it up in a compost bin. 

This combination makes great compost and saves lots of coffee grounds from going to the landfill in plastic bags. 

I save the bags and use them as hot caps over my tomato plants in the spring.
—Cathryn

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