Hello Fellow Readers,
I had a good laugh when I heard from my youngest brother, who lives in Tennessee. Rick texted a photo of his cup of joe with a frothy smiley face smack dab in the middle. “Look at my message this morning in my coffee.”
His suspicious sister writes back, “Come on. A template or magic?”
“It just showed up. I was laughing so hard…It was even right side up.”
“It just showed up. I was laughing so hard…It was even right side up.”
Magic indeed! My little brother has been one of my most humorous students of Garden Dilemmas. You may recall his tent caterpillar dilemma chomping his roses. He learned an environmentally kind way of removing them rather than using nasty sprays he fessed up too. Then a scarlet-and-green leafhopper took up residence. No dangerous chemicals used. “She’s too cool to disturb. Even if it’s bad for the roses!” (Link to Rose is a Rose for the whole story). And, I’m sure dear Rick, you no longer put edibles in the nifty air-conditioner screen / walled garden combo you built with pallets now that you know they’re often infused with chemicals. Such a good student…(Check out Rick’s impressive Pallet Garden & AC Screen project.)
Rick’s Smiling Cup of Joe recalls the beneficial uses of coffee grounds (Coffee Grounds for your Garden?). I started collecting them from pods that are taking over landfills. It was soon after Curt moved in with a handy K-cup machine. I found biodegradable ones but still cut the encasing from the grounds. Sadly, I don’t have a “proper” compost bin with kitchen scraps and such because of our resident bear. And the Worm Composting indoor option made me too squeamish. Especially separating the worms from the castings part (a subtle way of saying worm excrement). We’ve been layering the coffee grounds amongst the leaf debris and grass clippings. Late in the fall, I top-dressed garden beds with the fertile black composted soil mixed and leaf mold. For sure, the soil is busy soaking in the nutrients.
There are other uses too. They say grounds scattered around plants will deter slugs as well as aphids (see previous Ugly slug and Aphids on Roses columns). And, they can serve as a substitute for damaging road salt to give you a grip on ice. John from Mount Bethel PA shared he burns used coffee grounds on aluminum foil, placing them upwind, to deter mosquitos and bees during picnics. They hate the smell and the smoke. Perhaps you’ll experiment with that, my dear brother the engineer, and report back if the smell deters picnickers too. It’s nice starting a new day with a good hard laugh :^). Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone@gmail.com
Thank you for the idea to use coffee grounds to deter slugs. I’m seeing signs of slugs on
a few plants and need to address it.
Hi Mary! What I’m seeing now on that hostas that was hidden under tons of weeds is a few holes and many more black dots some with white specks in the centers. Slugs? Thank you for your expert advice.
Hello Sarah, I just researched what slug eggs look like, and learned they’re fish-egg-like in brownish-gray clusters on top of soil or under leaves. So, your black dots with white specks dilemma sounds like a fungus to me. Now that you gave them air circulation by weeding around them, things should improve. Hostas are tough.
FYI: I wrote a previous column about other slug remedies beyond coffee grounds https://askmarystone.com/ugly-slug-remedies/
Thanks for sharing your garden dilemma :^), Mary