Coffee

[beejay]

I remember a while ago reading that it was possible that coffee could be used as a slug & snail deterrent. Does anybody know anymore about it, does it work, are there any problems or do they just prefer a nice cup of tea?

[beejay]

[ellkebe]

I have coffee grounds round a clematis.  It's planted in the open rather than in a pot so I wasn't able to use copper tape, which seems to work very well.  The coffee grounds seem to do the job, so long as you renew them every once in a while, and make sure no leaves provide a 'bridge' over them!

[Kepouros]

Coffee, mixed at normal drinking strength and watered onto the soil, is indeed a slug and snail deterrent; it doesn`t kill them but they absolutely hate it.  Unfortunately it will also cause chlorosis in some crops, and will damage, or at least slow down the rate of growth of, seedlings and young plants.

You can use it to clear a bed which you would then have to leave for some weeks before sowing, but at the same time if you use it regularly around the edges of the bed it will prevent the slugs getting back in.

I use it freely on mature crops such as potatoes on which the foliage is dying back, or carrots which are to remain in the ground until used, and it provides excellent protection until the crop is lifted.

The cheapest you can buy at Aldi or Lidl works as well as any other.

[Palustris]

Our slugs must be different, they still managed to get at my Meconopsis, and that had a 3 inch band of Aldi coffee round it !

[wardy]

Slugs are brill aren't they.  They climb up my phlox to get to my courgettes which are grown in pots to keep them away from slugs  :(   I'm sure they can do long jump  ;D

[Kepouros]

Eric, perhaps they were already inside the band area when you applied it