Grounds For The Garden

The Grounds for the Garden project is a local campaign, working with Eden Valley Hospice & Jigsaw, to reduce waste and help your garden grow.

What’s the project about?

Grounds for the Garden encourages local establishments to take their left-over coffee grounds and put them to good use. After pouring your well-deserved cup of coffee, the used coffee grounds are re-packaged, in the finished coffee bags they arrived in. Once the bags are full, customers can takeaway a bag of used coffee grounds, in exchange for a donation of any amount.

Coffee grounds are great for the garden as they are full of minerals that aid in vegetable and plant growth, and make a fantastic addition to your composts or worm bins.

One of the projects aims is also to motivate residents and businesses alike, to become more environmentally friendly; re-using coffee grounds in this way, not only reduces landfill, but the John Watt & Son bags are also reused as a way for people to take the coffee grounds home.

The money raised is helping two great local charities as well as a sense of community and businesses working together.

‘’Grounds for the Garden is such a wonderful scheme, we instantly fell in love with the idea and thought it was such a unique way to not only help the environment (and your garden!) but to raise funds for the hospice at the same time. John Watt & Sons have supported Eden Valley Hospice and Jigsaw for some time now and we are thrilled to see this idea turn into such a successful venture. It’s great to see so many establishments getting on board too, thank you to all of the businesses who have signed up and to John Watt & Sons for all of their hard work.’’

– Natalie Bingham, Eden Valley Hospice & Jigsaw

“Carlisle is a tight-knit community and we are keen to get involved with local charity initiatives.”

– Peter Johnston, Owner of John Watt & Son

Where to find coffee grounds:

Currently, the establishments below are taking part across Cumbria and South West Scotland; with donations going to Eden Valley Hospice & Jigsaw. You can pick up your used coffee grounds from any of the following places: 

• John Watt & Son Bank Street Branch - Carlisle 
• John Watt & Son Blackfriars Street Branch - Carlisle
• John Watt & Son Museum Café at Cumbria's Museum of Military Life in Carlisle Castle - Carlisle
• Orton Grange Café - Carlisle
• Cakes & Ales - Carlisle
• Skitby House - Carlisle
• The Script - Carlisle 
• COM-FOR-T street eats- Carlisle
• Greyhound Inn - Cotehill, Carlisle 
• Baristas at Wigton - Wigton
• Derwent Pencil Museum - Keswick
• The Filling Station - Keswick
• Dixon Department Store - West Cumbria
• Westlakes Science Park -Whitehaven 
• Café Aroma - Maryport
• Rafferty's Bistro - Maryport
• Cinebar – Annan
• No. 15 Gin Bar - Carlisle

Used coffee grounds can also be found at Tullie House – Carlisle, however donations go to Tullie House’s chosen charity; please enquiries in house for more information.

How to get involved:

For those interested in taking part; John Watt & Son will provide you with all the information you need and your own Eden Valley & Jigsaw Hospice donation tin. They also continually promote the project on social media, including who is taking part.

Click here for more information or to become involved. 

Other related projects/information of interest:

• Love Food Hate Waste – This project aims to raise awareness of the need to reduce food waste and help us take action. It shows that by doing some easy practical everyday things in the home we can all waste less food, which will ultimately benefit our purses and the environment too. Click HERE for more information.

• Food Composters - Carlisle residents can get home food waste digesters at a fraction of the normal cost as part of a scheme being run by Carlisle City Council and Cumbria County Council. Orders can be placed from the Great Green Systems website.

• Allotments – Fancy growing your own fruit and veg? Carlisle City Council has 777 allotment plots on 67 sites, distributed throughout the urban area of the city. Some sites have as many as 60 individual plots while others have as few as two. Click HERE to find out more information.