coffee grounds/tomatoes

[Sly boots 9]

Can I use grounds on my t plants? I just planted them today.

[Dwayne]

I would say yes, but don't put them on too thick or they will get moldy. I would mix them with sand or dirt and then add them. If you cant do that, let them dry out and just sprinkle them around.

Dwayne

[Bill]

Yeah, either sprinkle them on top of your other mulch or scratch them into the soil.

[Walyb]

[Bob S.]

Can you: Yes Should you: Why do you feel the need to?

Bob S.

[Bill]

I usually avoid making assumptions. While I don't think I would invest in fresh grounds exclusively for this purpose, I doubt if it would cause harm to apply them as suggested. I usually make one such (heavy) surface application a year to control grubs and there is no apparent harm to the plants.

My sense was that the OP had some spent coffee grounds available and wanted to know if it was okay to use them. This newsgroup gets that question a dozen or so times each spring. Each time, it is a novice looking to expand their skills so it's worth answering.

BIll

[Bad Bob]

My plants grow best with Jamaican Blue Mountain grounds. But watch out the decaf stuff will kill quicker than roundup...

Bad Bob

"Cook him till he's blue, and smother him in onions."

[Bill]

Heh ... the decaf stuff is tough on humans!

Maybe by building the dose up slowly I could get the slugs used to real coffee and then, when I switched to decaf, they wouldn't actually die but would leave in disgust. Whaddya think? Is it worth a try?

Bill

[nina]

Or the withdrawal headaches would leave them in too much pain to eat the plants.

[Bad Bob]

Sounds like a plan...

Bad Bob

"Cook him till he's blue, and smother him in onions."

[Bill]

Anything is worth a try. I normally get the tiny brown / grey slugs of about

1/2 inch in length. Yesterday, while putting some aged compost through a hardware cloth screen I encountered a ferocious two inch long orange monster with 4 horns and big teeth!

Well, okay ... I didn't actually see the teeth but the rest was definitely there. Right up until I cut his head off with a pocket knife. Then he was a more manageable and docile 1 1/2 inches.

Bill

[Blues Ma]

Doesn't dusting with diatomaceous earth help discourage your slugs ? I've found that putting it on the soil around their favorite snack plants really

turns 'em off.

Dorothy    

[Bill]

Although it may not hold true this year, I've found that fresh coffee grounds, applied liberally at the first sign of damage / infestation clears the matter up for a full growing season.

I'm not finding slugs in my garden (which was treated in this fashion) but only in the paths and compost piles around it (which were not treated with the coffee grounds). In the paths and compost I have found two distinct varieties of slugs ... that long orange guy and the shorter gray slugs I am used to seeing. However, I have not seen any sign of either variety in my garden since treating it with coffee grounds this spring. And that's the important point; I don't have a generic hate for slugs ... I just don't want them damaging my garden.

We've had an extremely wet spring so I am open to the possibility that I may have to reapply the coffee grounds this year. Normally a single application lasts the whole year. So I want to know, as I do with coffee grounds, that what I am applying will decompose into useful compounds and not build up into a problem somewhere down the road. Diatomaceous earth gets into the body joints of a lot of different insects, including beneficials such as ladybugs and lacewings. I am, therefore, reluctant to use it.

I've seen a lot of websites claiming that DE does not hurt earthworms, but I also ran across this one

that claims that DE is an effective control for them. Since the sites that claim it's safe are also selling it I tend to discount their claims of safety. The site that claims it is a control for them does not sell it. I am leaning toward the Environment Canada site that claims it is harmful.

I quote this excerpt from another source:

"4. ... Animals, humans and birds however, can digest diatomaceous earth and are not effected by it. CAUTION: Earthworms, honeybees, caterpillars, predator mites and ladybugs will die if they ingest diatomaceous earth. "

Yesterday, for the heck of it, I counted the worms in just two forkfulls of aged (~1 year) compost. I got 18 in the first forkful and 22 in the second one. Considering that I put about 20 forkfulls of compost through hardware mesh (picking out the worms as I went) and then onto my garden yesterday, that's about 400 worms added to my beds in a single day.

I don't want to needlessly kill a single one of them and I don't trust the vendors of DE to tell me the truth about its safety.

Bill