Garden Dilemmas, Delights & Discoveries, Ask Mary Stone, New Jersey Garden blog

Smiling Cup of Joe

Mary Stone, Garden Dilemmas, Ask Mary Stone,Gardening tips, Garden Blogs, Stone Associates Landscape Design, Garden Blog,Northern New Jersey Landscape Designer, Coffee Grounds in the Garden, Smiling Cup of Joe

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.”

Mary Stone, Garden Dilemmas, Ask Mary Stone,Gardening tips, Garden Blogs, Stone Associates Landscape Design, Garden Blog,Northern New Jersey Landscape Designer, Coffee Grounds in the Garden, Smiling Cup of Joe

“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

 

 

 

Mary Stone, owner of Stone Associates Landscape Design & Consulting. As a Landscape Designer, I am grateful for the joy of helping others beautify their surroundings which often leads to sharing encouragement and life experiences. These relationships inspired my weekly column published in THE PRESS, 'Garden Dilemmas? Ask Mary', began in 2012. I dream of growing the evolving community of readers into an interactive forum to share encouragement and support in Garden and Personal Recoveries - seeking nature’s inspirations, stimulating growth, weeding undesirables, embracing the unexpected. Thank you for visiting! Mary
  1. Sarah Hare Reply

    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.

  2. Sarah Hare Reply

    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.

    • Mary Stone Reply

      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

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