[Community_garden] Giant hostas and coffee grounds

[Jennifer L Barricklow]

I suspect that sprinkling coffee grounds benefits the hostas at City Hall
more as a slug deterrent than as a fertilizer. Slugs love to chew hostas
to shreds but can't stand to crawl over crumbly/pokey things like coffee
grounds. Crushed oyster shells work as well, but don't blend as nicely
with most mulch as coffee grounds, nor are they as readily available to
most gardeners. The coffee grounds do eventually break down, just as the
mulch does; they may even decompose more quickly, in which case they
could provide a bit of a boost to the soil nutrients.

Jennifer Barricklow
Lexington KY

> Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:25:32 -0500
> From: "Kirby, Ellen" <ellenkirby at bbg.org>
> Subject: [Community_garden] Giant hostas and coffee grounds
       
> 
> How about some anecdotal information from gardener's who've used 
> coffee
> grounds (or did this happen earlier and I missed it)?  The gardener 
> for
> City Hall in NYC swears that hostas there are the biggest in the 
> world
> by putting grounds straight  around the plants (in moderation of
> course). 
> 
> Ellen Kirby
>