Coffee, that dark, heady brew that gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you going throughout the day! Though it’s most certainly delicious to drink, coffee has many different uses.
Pour yourself a cup of Joe, pull up a chair, and find out how else coffee may help around the homestead of even save your bacon someday. Oh, and don’t throw away the grounds quite yet – after you read this, you’ll understand why.
1. Compost
Coffee grounds add acidity to your compost pile and may also attract worms and repel pests. Remember that you want to keep the ratio of green matter and brown matter equal and coffee counts as green matter.
Coffee is rich in nitrogen, which your compost needs in order to cure properly. If you’re worried about not having enough phosphorus or potassium in your compost, throw some banana peels on your pile, too.
2. Fertilizer
Coffee grounds have two of the three major components of fertilizer: nitrogen and potassium. It also adds a nice magnesium boost, which your plants need to grow and thrive. Since you also need phosphorus and calcium, you’ll need to add some lime or wood ash to your mix.
3. Staying Awake
coffee bug outSure, coffee is a great eye-opener, but it’s great to help you KEEP your eyes open, too. If you’re in a survival situation and it’s your watch, you’re not going to want to doze off on your post.
Also, if you have to travel a long distance, the extra energy will help you keep pushing on. An interesting fact for you here: certain tribes in coffee-growing countries used to wrap a coffee bean in fat to carry with them as a source of energy.
This would probably be great to do with Pemmican, too. You’d have fat, protein, carbs and energy. For that matter, coffee is a great source of antioxidants and other goodies that will help you out along the trail.
4. Headaches
One of the primary ingredients in many headache or migraine medications is caffeine. Also, if you’re used to drinking coffee on a daily basis, especially a LOT of coffee, you will likely go through withdrawals from the caffeine addiction.
The primary symptom is a headache. So, whether you’re suffering from a migraine or headache caused by something else, or from caffeine deprivation, drink a cup of coffee to get rid of it.
5. Grow Worms
If you live near water and are going to be depending on fish and a compost pile for food/gardening, worms are your friend. They need gritty substances such as coffee to aid in their digestion so a planter full of dirt and coffee grounds would be heaven for worms.
6. Barter
You know how much you love your coffee. Well, you’re not the only one, but you may be the only one who thought ahead enough to stockpile it! Coffee is going to be a great barter item if SHTF even for a little while. (continue reading)