Posted elsewhere on ATP: Cafffine kills slugs/snails...

The thread "How to kill off Slugs & Snails (really!!) without pesticides" in Sempervivum forum

and people if used in large quantities -- lol!!!

The idea is pouring used coffee grinds around the plant, the caffine in the grinds makes their slim glands go crazy and drives them away.

Tried this coffee ground ideal and it really works.
White Christmas was always full of holes but not this year. Sprinkled more grounds today. Tried first time last fall thinking it wouldn't work. My whites/yellows always were full of holes-not this year.

It worked for me. I found out about it years ago. The Hosta forums were buzzing about coffee grinds. The info I read was it had to be un-used coffee because if you brew the coffee it takes out most of the caffine. I traveled a lot back then and coffee was in the rooms so I would collect the free coffee and sprinkle it in my hosta garden. I had a horrible problem with slugs. Leaves were gone I thought it was rabbits.

I sprinkle it in the gardens in the spring before they leaf out and I have not had holes or half leaf eaten since I started using coffee.

I know some said it did not work but they were using the free used coffee grinds from Starbucks but what I read was it had to be unused grinds and that is what I am using.

I might give the coffee thing a try. slugs are having a field day here in the northwest this spring, due to out record setting warm winter- and coffe grounds are about the ONLY thing we haven't tried. some of our hostas are being dismantled as I type. oh, did I use the term, dismantled? I meant SHREDDED! nothing seems to really be holding them back. how thick of a layer do you have to put down? a light dusting or an inch thick caking? whatever it takes i'll do it!

I just sprinkle a dusting around. It does not need to be thick. Just use coffee that you have not brewed. It is the caffinee that kills them. If you brew coffee the grinds have little to no caffine left to do the job.

I tried coffee grounds one year and the slugs just marched over them.

Ann I sprinkle it down in the spring before they come up. It is our rainy season then so the coffee washes into the soil. I had a huge problem and had tried everything. Even the Diatomaceous earth, but the coffee and epsom salt in the Spring seems to be what works best for me. Maybe because I had the good coffee. I was traveling and the company put us in the best hotels. I got some pretty expensive gourmet coffee in the rooms every morning. Everybody in our group that did not drink coffee would give me their coffee so I have enough coffee for the next couple of years.