[Community_garden] Giant hostas and coffee grounds

[Laurie J. Hughes]

We use coffee grounds as an ant deterrent in our garden.  I wasn't a
believer until I took an apple core and coated half of it with coffee
grounds and set it near a known ant hill.  Coated half soon covered with
ants, but nothing on the grounds side.  I decided I wanted to push the
experiment further so I then poured grounds over the coated half and watched
the ants abandon it in a matter of minutes.  Fresh ones seemed to work
better than old ones.  They didn't even like walking over the fresh grounds
and detoured around the pile of grounds.

Good enough for me to try it out in the garden.

I use coffee grounds in with my worms (but not grounds exclusively, I figure
the better, more rounded diet they eat the better the results will be for my
plants.)  I'd say they get about 2 cups of coffee grounds a week.

Laurie

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Laurie J Hughes
Silicon Valley, CA (formerly the Valley of Hearts Delight)

Bobbin lace, social history, gardening
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-----Original Message-----
From: community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org
[mailto:community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org] On Behalf Of
Jennifer L Barricklow
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 5:52 AM
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Giant hostas and coffee grounds

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
> 

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