Finish outdoor seed planting with coffee grounds
It has been a blessing that the competition for free coffee grounds at the Starbucks at my work has increased now the weather warmed up and I have freed from the temptation to grab yet another free shiny silver bag of grounds. The reason is, I have put four bags in my compost, worked generous amounts into my vegetable garden and I still have six bags left. Now I am looking at inventive ways to use the rest up. I tried mixing with perlite to make a cheap potting soil (failed still no room for roots) but I believe I have come across one success I thought I would share.
When you are finished planting seeds outdoors apply a thin layer of coffee grounds. This will deter slugs from going after your new seedlings and keep cats from mistaking your nicely loosened and raked soil for their kitty litter.
I have done this for my larger seed plants (peas, garlic, onions, cilantro) but for the small seed plants (carrots, lettuce, spinach) I used the coffee grounds as a seed covering.
So far the results are great. All of my peas/garlic/onions/spinach have sprouted with no signs of pests (four-legged nor zero-legged).
Gee..never heard this before. Thanks for sharing.
where i’ve spread grounds on the grass (since my topsoil is about 1in deep on top of clay)…anyway where i spread it near the sidewalk i see it gets more interest from dogs sniffing. but haven’t paid enough attention to see if it discourages any kind of deposits….-Frank
blossom, glad to shareAnonymous, I am jealous I have 1/4 in of topsoil on clay. I haven’t heard anything about deterring dogs think the stuff would drive the clean freak cats crazy with the fine grounds on their paws.
It’s also good for deterring squirrels.
Great blog post! I love learning about this online as gardening/landscaping are not only hobbies of mine but I actually do a little bit of work like that during the summer months as a second job. I appreciate your content in your blog and wish that you would keep up the good work 🙂
Matt, almost miss the squirrels in my are. Too many houses, not enough mature trees…maybe a few too many predators as well (coyotes, wolves, cougars, oh my)Log Homes, as long as people keep reading, I will keep writing 🙂