Tag: Deter bunnies with used coffee grounds

Coffee Time

It is coffee time at the townhouse gardens. They don’t get mulch love, and I try not to use a lot of chemicals, so they get just a dash of used coffee grounds. I started this practice many years ago to fend off slugs on hostas and now I (sparingly) give each plant a sprinkling. There is the thing about acidic levels and certain plants, but so far this practice has been just fine.
As for timing, I start when the plants are popping up, but about this time of year, when so much starts to come up each day, I move to just doing sections. This year I started in front, but other years I have started in back.
At the historic cemetery I will only put used coffee grounds around the hostas, to ward off slugs. The rest of the plants don’t need any boost. They have that beautiful mulch 🥰

Coffee time begins

Today we hit 50° F.  Woohoo!  Hello spring!!!

The snow is melting pretty fast.  Last week we lost well over a foot within a few days.  The sewers and drainage ditches were overwhelmed and the farm fields had so much water in them that they looked like lakes.  When the wind got howling it looked like they had mini whitecaps!

Today I can see quite a bit more grass.  We still have giant piles of snow from plowing, but where the open spaces were mostly white yesterday morning, this afternoon they are at least 50% grass.  The more modest snow piles now resemble a snowy version of the Badlands instead of the Himalayas.   10 days ago we looked like this:

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Soon we will see tulips and sedum starting to pop up.  Today it is time for this to start going out on the gardens:

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It is coffee time!

I used to buy sprinkle/pour fertilizer granules and put that on my gardens in the fall.  They were “time released” so in the spring I would see them in the soil.  For the past few years I have put used coffee grounds down instead.  I started because it deters slugs, and I found it also deterred bunnies and did a great job of fertilizing.  My plants have gone bonkers since I started doing that.  They are very happy!

I start out pretty sparingly – just light sprinkles.  Then when the hostas start to come up, I also put grounds lightly around each plant.  I rarely have slug issues when I get started on that process early.

If the forecast holds for Saturday, I will also have my first “patio time” of the season.  Some people call it “lawn chair therapy”.  Either way, it is bliss!

Wait!  I also just heard the first motorcycle of the season!  Oh yah!!!  We Minnesotans are so ready for a new season!