coffee grounds in garden

[suzyduzy]

Ok, not to sure on how to do this, but here goes. Has anyone had any experience with using coffee grounds in vegetable garden to deter slugs? Especially around tomato plants . Been saving all winter to try it out. Any help appreciated..thanks

[tiggs&oscar]

Hi SuzyDuzy

Coffee grounds are great in a compost heap but I haven't heard of them as a slug deter but would be keen to know of any success with it.
Copper bands are good for pot plants, they seem to emit an electrical current and I have also used gravel and crushed egg shells for pots and borders as they don't like crawling over it. I guess it's about obstructing their path.

I have a gravel patio with lots of pots and was puzzled as to how my green beans were getting nibbled until I woke up early the other day and saw the trail the snails had left. Up the shed wall and down onto the wooden bench then along and over the lavender pot onto the beans avoiding the gravel.
You have to admire them, don't you?

TO

[Candida]

I also use coffee grounds in compost and to acidify around my blueberries and azalea. I have never heard of them being used to deter slugs. I have never tried preventing slugs, but when I do have a problem with them, I simply go out with a salt shaker and sprinkle salt on them. They die almost immediately.

[Jess]

[Slug-killing coffee
All of this will have organic gardeners shuddering. But new research will have them smiling and could boost their ranks. American scientists believe they have discovered a new, environmentally friendly slug killer coffee! Or, to be more precise, caffeine. The US Department of Agriculture team say that this human stimulant puts slugs and snails to sleep. For good. Their trials have shown that caffeine solutions do not damage plants such as palms and orchids but they can cause leaf yellowing in ferns, bromeliads and lettuce.]

Copied this from an organic website. The last I heard was that the R.H.S (Royal Horticultural Society) were doing trials but could not release data until tested for at least 3 years!
I have found it has to be stronger than your average cup of coffee to have any effect. Maybe you could do your own trials on tomatoes using varying strengths. Whatever you do it won't instantly kill your tomatoes.

I use it around Irises but only when absolutely necessary as in when the (insert nasty word) attack flower buds. I haven't noticed any detrimental effect but I use it maybe 2 or 3 times a year and thats all.

[Jess]

Just thought I would post this while we are on the subject of slugs. I go out in the morning with a wooden kebab stick and pierce slugs I find onto it then leave it on the ground near my bird table. I now have 6 Mistle thrushes who regularly visit my garden eating the ones I have stabbed and finding all the slugs that I missed!

[Candida]

I personally prefer a more passive-aggressive approach to slugs, but my 8-year-old son would love having that added to his chores!!!

[Candida]

Does this strong coffee make them move faster?

[Jess]

I personally prefer a more passive-aggressive approach to slugs, but my 8-year-old son would love having that added to his chores!!!

My older son used to eat snails. Caught him once with one in his hand heading for his mouth. He turned towards me as I shouted, smiled and crunched it right in front of me....Gross!!!

As for slugs and snails going hyper on coffee I have no idea. Would be funny seeing them speeding round the garden until they died from exhaustion.

[jsr54]

If you do decide to use coffee grounds for either your garden or especially your compost pile, you can get all the coffee grounds you could want from Starbucks.



John

[lillgardnr]

Just thought I would post this while we are on the subject of slugs. I go out in the morning with a wooden kebab stick and pierce slugs I find onto it then leave it on the ground near my bird table. I now have 6 Mistle thrushes who regularly visit my garden eating the ones I have stabbed and finding all the slugs that I missed!

thats a great idea. i love the idea of bringing helpful animals into the mix. they are a blast to watch

[sagedavis]

since we are on the subject of Coffee, LOL...
We recentless switched our house coffee to decaf, but, I have still been using it in my garden, and in my potted plants.

I also mix in pulvarised egg shells.

This is mostly because the earth that I mix it with comes from my yard, which is nutreantless.

My rosemary (potted) is doing quite well with this mixture, as a plant, and I do not have slugs (eggshells perhaps helped this?).

My garden (mostly flowers and some peppers) also have about a half inch to an inch of this mixture on it, no slugs, not really anything eating them except for the occasional aphid on my roses.

It did, somehow, make my potted mint grow way faster than I expected it to, and the roots basically strangled it out before I realized what was causing the death of the the mint, and obviously, before I decided it was time to transplant it.

Mind you, I really only started heavy gardening this year, and I plan to get rid of most of my flowers and just start dealing with edible plant materials for next year. So, you can't really take my word for Bible here, because it could be other factors that keep the slugs away, maybe I don't have anything that they want...

Hope this helps though
Sage

[lillgardnr]

the kids and i tried slugs-ona-stick.... no birds came, but the kids had a great time

[Jess]

the kids and I tried slugs-ona-stick.... no birds came, but the kids had a great time

I am glad your children enjoyed themselves!

You may have better luck in the Spring when the birds are looking to nest. They will be looking for readily available food sources much more when producing young. Try to keep 'kebabing' them on a regular basis now so the birds start to notice. You may get lucky.

[Newt]

I really got a giggle out of this thread. I would like to add to be careful with those spent coffee grounds. They are highly acidic. They would be great used around azaleas, rhodoendrons, blueberries and other plants that like acid soil. Most plants prefer a pH of neutral to slightly acid, so applying a couple of times a year should do no harm. Of course they can be added to the compost pile.

Newt

[rainbowgardener]

I think the coffee grounds as a weapon against slugs thing is mostly urban myth. The coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and are good for plants that like acidic soil. But they are not sharp enough to cut up slugs and snails, like diatomaceous earth does. Caffeine does work against them, but fresh coffee has about 1/2 % caffeine, not enough to do much good. And all of that was leached out of the grounds, which have almost none. Here's a good article with a rational discussion of this issue.

http://www.paghat.com/coffeeslugs.html


So if the re-caffeinating place gets the grounds up to at least 1% caffeine it has a shot of working, but that would be a lot of caffeine (but hey, they have to have something to do with all that caffeine they remove to make decaf )