Did you know that coffee can be a great pick-me-up for your plants as well as yourself?
Well, here at Gaggia UK Direct we want to make sure our products are as environmentally friendly as possible … and with coffee grounds only going as far as your garden then we reckon that’s a box ticked.

According to the BBC’s Gardeners World magazine: “Coffee grounds are an excellent compost ingredient and are fine to apply directly onto the soil around most garden plants if used with care and moderation.” 

Coffee’s a good fertiliser because coffee grounds are rich in nutrients, particularly nitrogen, and also contain potassium and phosphorous.

But spread it as a thin layer so it shares the nutrients around - don’t just chuck it on your garden in clumps. If you do that the grounds will clog together in a big blob of coffee, stopping water and air from getting to plant roots.

You could always just pop your Gaggia coffee grounds into your compost bin where they will just naturally rot, adding nutrients to your homemade compost which is an effective way to grow healthy plants. Obviously don’t overdo it – keep the coffee to under 25% of the overall compost of what you’d normally throw in there such as vegetable and fruit scraps along with leaves.

This will all break down into great compost over time as the rain and sunshine hits it.
It saves throwing your coffee away in the kitchen bin and some people even pour their coffee grounds down the sink where it could ultimately block the pipes.
When the soil is turned over the coffee grounds will then be fully recycled back into the soil.

Coffee is slightly acidic so it’s good to use with plants that like acidic soil such as hydrangeas, azaleas and lilies and root crops such as radishes and carrots, especially when mixed with soil at planting time.

It’s even suggested that coffee grounds can repel slugs as they don’t like the caffeine or gritty texture so it may be worth spreading them around the plants that slugs tend to target.

Be aware that caffeine is toxic to dogs and, although very little caffeine will be left once you’ve brewed your coffee, it’s probably best to work it into the soil or put it in your compost bin if you have a nosey pooch that’ll eat anything.

Some say coffee grounds repel cats and put them off using your flower and vegetables patches as an outdoor litter box. If so, that’s a bonus. 

The website Gardening Know How suggests making a coffee ground ‘garden tea’ by mixing a couple of cups of coffee grounds in a five-gallon water can, leave overnight and then use it as a liquid fertilizer.

Some say they’re a great fertilizer for tomatoes while others are not so sure. It’s also suggested coffee grounds work well with cabbages, fruit trees, roses and camellias but not on beans. It’s even thought that coffee grounds will deter weeds.

Like everything, it’s all down to trial and error and, as time goes on, you’ll discover which parts of your garden like your used Gaggia coffee grounds best.
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Happy gardening but don’t forget to keep stopping for a nice cup of Gaggia coffee.
Your plants will blooming well love you for it!

There’s a saying that charity begins at home but here at Gaggia UK Direct we believe it starts in the business too.

After all, coffee is a sociable drink which brings friends together and can be a great way to help charities and community groups.

So we use the power of coffee to help many charities, donating machines and providing free barista training to several good causes, as well as raising thousands of pounds every year.

Managing director Raj Beadle has lived in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, for many years and so the company regularly donates to the town’s Welcome Centre food bank and the Huddersfield Mission where Raj used to be a trustee, along with international charity Christians Against Poverty and the Leeds-based Little Sisters of the Poor which runs a care home for the elderly.

Raj had never heard of the Little Sisters until they knocked on the Gaggia UK Direct door at its headquarters in Elland, West Yorkshire.

“I first knew about them when two nuns knocked on our door asking for donations,” says Raj. “I was so surprised to see them standing there we’ve helped them ever since.”
Huddersfield Mission helps people struggling with complex needs such as homelessness, mental health and addiction. Gaggia UK Direct donated a commercial coffee machine and provided the charity with barista training.

Raj has been a member of Lindley Methodist Church in Huddersfield for a long time which has supported a charity called the Riziki children’s organisation based in Nakuru, Kenya, for 15 years. Riziki rescues young children, usually orphans, trying to survive by scavenging on a rubbish tip just outside the city.

They then live in dormitories at the organisation’s centre where they grow their own food and vegetables and Riziki also pays school fees so the children can go to a nearby school to help them on their way to a better life. The schooling can lead into higher education, including universities.

The charity costs £50,000 a year to run and a series of church events culminating in a fundraising concert at Lindley Methodist Church in May 2024 raised almost £5,000, This included Raj raffling off a gold-coloured coffee machine and Gaggia UK Direct sponsoring the concert and making donations to the music groups involved. Raj hosts and sponsors a coffee morning in the church on the third Friday of every month from 10am to 12 noon to raise even more for Riziki, with the mornings expanding into crafts and charity stall events.

Gaggia UK Direct has sponsored Cleckheaton Cricket Club near Dewsbury in West Yorkshire for many years – it even has its own Gaggia scoreboard – and a youth team at Greetland Football Club near Halifax which is also in West Yorkshire. Gaggia UK Direct staff are involved in both these organisations.

In the past Gaggia UK Direct has been a major supporter for Macmillan Coffee Mornings and also helped the Prince’s Trust’s ‘Get Into’ scheme providing free training for youngsters struggling to get into work or training, often because they come from deprived backgrounds. Gaggia UK Direct not only trained them for two weeks with top baristas but took some on and one now runs her own business.

Raj said: “I wish we could do something similar now as we could do it over Zoom online. People sometimes need a stepping stone in life and we would gladly help them.”
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Contacting Gaggia UK Direct couldn’t be easier. Phone us Monday to Friday on 01422 766972 or email us at [email protected]
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The following blog was written and published on LinkedIn by a customer of ours,  Berris Charnley.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/berris-charnley/

"You should be able to fix the machines you buy. This idea has been gaining ground in recent years under the banner of the right to repair movement. Repair and maintenance are interesting cousins of intellectual property. They operate on the same boundaries of remaking and making, openness and closedness, and sharing or protecting ideas.
Various figures have emerged to champion the idea that repair is a right, they range from journalist/author Cory Doctrow <https://pluralistic.net/> and computer technician Louis Rossman, <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w> who point to the fortresses being constructed around big tech using intellectual property; fortresses that make it harder and harder to fix a laptop, over to Tesla rebuilders <https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvm3z5/rich-rebuilds-tesla-repair-and-salvage> and tractor maintainers <https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/>. As tech-focused news media such as Vice and WIRED have covered these stories the narrative is often told as one of evil corporations, looking to use secrecy, patents and sealed units to stop rebel repairers from fixing their own devices. The strong impression that this telling creates is that customer repairs are bad for business.
But what happens when companies encourage repairs? Is it true, as Louis Rossman puts it, that, “You will not go out of business if you share with other people how you did a repair”? I recently had to fix a coffee machine. I’ve been using the same Gaggia Classic for nearly 12 years and it started to leak. I got in touch with Gaggia Direct <https://www.gaggiadirect.com/>, my local UK Gaggia distributer. Surprisingly I was invited to have a zoom call with the company’s owner. He talked me through the fault, gave me a likely diagnosis, and then told me where I could buy the gasket I would need. The website he directed me to – Mr Bean to Cup <https://www.mrbean2cup.co.uk/> – provided blowup schematics with details of the gasket. With the new part in hand, I went back to Gaggia Direct’s website where there were links to instructional videos to help me with the installation.
What was happening here? Gaggia Direct has taken an explicit decision to enable people to do repairs for themselves. Their thinking is that trusting their customers will help their customers to trust them. My own experience points to a couple of additional benefits. As I attempted the repair it immediately became obvious that while it might have seemed simple, there was a lot of know-how that I was missing. Various threads had seized, and it wasn’t entirely obvious, even following along with an instructional video, how much pressure to put where, or what was important. The experience of attempting the repair myself strengthened my respect for the Gaggia Direct technicians’ expertise.  And thinking more deeply about trust, I had found myself dealing with a company that was willing to help me try and keep a 12-year-old machine running. When that machine eventually dies, I want to buy from a company that will help me keep the next machine running this long. In summary Gaggia Direct has chosen to have a better relationship with its customers because they think that will be better for their business. Speaking personally that seems to be a good decision and the company’s reviews on Google and Trust Pilot suggest that other customers feel the same way.
On a more theoretical level the Gaggia Direct example points to something that intellectual property scholars have been suggesting for a long time: registering and working strong intellectual property is only one of several business strategies and it is not one that every business manager sees as important and useful. More generally, the Gaggia Direct case points to the benefits of maintaining an open relationship to knowledge and adds an interesting extra wrinkle of complexity to the right to repair story. Opening up is something some businesses are choosing to do themselves, precisely because this way of operating seems more profitable. Finally, the Gaggia Direct example points to the importance of know-how. It is not just the technical specifications which matter, but also the expertise which goes around them. This is a point of direct relevance to several intellectual property focused debates ranging from discussions of the Tesla patents to the Covid TRIPS waiver.  Making the intellectual property available, whether that is schematics from patent filings or sequence information, is only the start of the process of knowledge transfer. 
"

Coffee is one of the most consumed drinks in the world. For break times or for an energy boost, it is a perfect companion for many moments throughout the day. And, once you have enjoyed its taste, do not throw away the coffee pucks! There are plenty of ways to give them a second life. For example, they can be recycled and used for gardening.
Coffee grounds, in fact, are rich in nutrients such as calcium, nitrogen, potassium and magnesium, essential for fertilisation. For this reason, they can be employed as an excellent natural compost, especially for plants that love acidic soils, such as azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons and camellias. Before their reuse, it is important to store them properly in a dry plastic bag or sealed glass container, to prevent any mold formation. - reproduced from Gaggia Website www.gaggia.com/un-espresso-in-giardino-come-riciclare-i-fondi-di-caffe/

​So, how to use them, in the best way? Just spread the coffee directly on the ground or in the pot, near the plant. Furthermore, to make a powerful and ecological liquid solution, you can put two cups of coffee grounds in a bucket full of water, and let them sit there for at least 24 hours. The fertiliser obtained can be sprayed directly on the plants, as nourishment for the leaves, which will become greener and luxuriant.
Recycling coffee grounds can also be useful for another important ally for a healthy garden: the repellent. In fact, they can be scattered around the plants and at the edges of the garden. In this way, you can obtain a valid help in removing unwanted snails, insects and small animals. As an old grandmother’s remedy teaches, coffee grounds and ash are the perfect method to protect the garden, without resorting to chemicals or pesticides.
Moreover, not everyone knows that coffee grounds also favor the growth of many vegetables and fruits, such as carrots and radishes. The addition of coffee powder to the seeds of these veggies makes sowing easier and, during the development of the seedlings, it will release the right nourishment by keeping pests away.
Recycling is a precious and fundamental habit for the sustainability of the environment. Start with a small step: preserve your espresso coffee puck and give your favorite drink a “green” second life!