Coffee in the grounds

Here at UKVending we love finding interesting and useful ways to recycle and be good to the planet and ourselves, so we were delighted to find yet another wonderful use we can put coffee grounds to: protecting our potatoes and crops from insects and other critters.

Scientists, farmer and small time growers have for years vouched for the benefit of sprinkling some used coffee grounds around plants to protect them from ants, snails and slugs. Whilst us humans love the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, ants find the smell repulsive and avoid areas with coffee grounds and similarly the rough nature of the grounds is extremely irritating to soft bellied pests such as slugs and snails.

You could also try adding some dried orange peel to the coffee grounds to keep the local cats away too, but cats being fickle creatures, sometimes are quite contradictory and definitely unpredictable.

Similarly, you can also soak your used coffee grounds in water overnight to extract more of that coffee goodness, then strain out the grounds and use the weak coffee liquid as a foliar spray.

The spray will have antimicrobial properties and will help to repel many insects, particularly caterpillars. It is thought the smell or flavor of the coffee acts as a deterrent to many critters.