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  • From: Melanie <melaniev@optonline.net>
  • To: gardenwriters-on-gardening <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [gwl-g] Coffee grounds & test
  • Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 08:33:47 -0400

Melanie D. Vassallo, Long Island NY zone 6b

Last year our newspaper "Newsday" interviewed me on an article about slugs.
They came to photograph slug damage in my garden too. I was surprised to get
phone calls the very next morning. They ran the article on page 6 along with
a photo of me in my garden. The article began "Melanie Vassallo is a
slugaphobic..." Everybody in town began to call me the "slug lady". Dealing
with slugs has been a life long adventure for me.

In my first house (I was in my 20's then) I used to take my husbands golf
club and wack the slugs off the walkway. This worked well, of course I only
did this when he wasn't home :-) Then one day I realized that echoing
thwack sound was the slug hitting the neighbors house. Phooey, had to put
the golf clubs away.

Just a test to see if my message from April 12th came to all:

Fox Hollow Farm is a 10 acre family flower farm just four acres away from my
home here on Long Island. Their two major crops are daylilies and hosta.
Right now they are fazing out the daylilies and increasing the hosta as they
are seeing quite a profit in the cut hosta leaves for the NY flower market.

They cannot afford any slug damage to the leaves and their foliage is very
clean. They use an organic product called "Sluggo". They also use coffee
grounds! The other day I saw the family matriarch Dinah and she told me that
she puts cold,used coffee grounds on the hosta to kill the baby slugs. She
does this right now, as the eyes are emerging from the soil. She was very
specific that she doesn't make a ring around the hosta but puts the grounds
right on top of the emerging eyes.

Now I don't suggest you drink enough coffee for grounds for 20 acres :-), is
there a Starbucks in your town? Maybe they'd let you take their used
grounds. It's worth a trial in an out of the way area on some older hosta.
I'm going to try it here too.

By the way Suzanne I'd love to see your garden, where is it located?

I've had great luck with a 1 to 5 ratio of household ammonia mixed with
water. You could put this in a back-pack sprayer and spray your plants. As I
understand it, the ammonia will kill the slugs and fertilize your hosta at
the same time. It works in my daylily beds here with no damage to the
foliage. I do the applications in early morning or late evening when the
slugs are active and the sun won't shine on the newly sprayed foliage.





  • [gwl-g] Coffee grounds & test, Melanie, 04/13/2004

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