It may look like dirt, but coffee grounds are a great natural insecticide.
If you have ever tried your hand at gardening, you’ve surely run into some sort of critter getting at your precious plants. Ants are one of the biggest culprits when it comes to outdoor gardening, but there’s a natural way to battle them! Coffee grounds can be an effective, natural, deterrent for bugs on plants.
Save your coffee grounds for the garden!
Getting up with sun sometimes requires a little help, and we’ve been collecting our coffee grounds in an old tin. We wanted to make sure our freshly transplanted tomato plants weren’t going to be eaten by all the hungry jungle ants.
Place the coffee grounds around the base of the plant.
Placing coffee grounds around the base of the plant, once a week or so, will keep the ants, and other land critters away from your plants. This works for all types of plants, not just fruit producing plants. If you have a garden with just flowers, give it a shot.
The key is to wait until the plant is clear of the seedling stage, and has a healthy stem. Bugs don’t like the taste of coffee, and the smell can even deter those pesky airborne critters.
Protecting the tomato plants from ants!
So, next time you enjoy a nice cup of coffee in the morning, think about saving those coffee grounds and using them in your garden. Not only will it keep the bugs away, it’s great for the soil, and the next time you plant, you’re soil will be even richer with nutrients.
Garden on!
Lower Dover Field Journal 
I heard it was good for keeping slugs at bay… but it didn’t work for my cabbages. At least the soil got some nutrients as you say.
Maybe you need to drink stronger coffee. :)
informative !
Lovely photos, making me miss summer gardening (Chicago only looks like that maybe two weeks out of the whole year). Coffee grounds are so great for any plants that like acidic soil, my family uses them on our tomatoes and our roses.
Thanks Maria, we are actually from Chicago, good luck with the blog, and thanks for stopping by.
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Great article! I did not realize coffee grounds would repel insects. I’ve been putting them on my garden (and potted plants) as fertilizer and to reduce weeds–I read somewhere that the sharp edges of coffee grounds make it difficult for new little plants to grow through them, while not damaging established stems.
I found your blog when you “liked” one of my articles. You might want to make an “About” page; from browsing around here, I can figure out that you are in Belize and are some type of educational and/or research facility that accepts paying guests, but it’s really kind of unclear what Lower Dover Field Station **is** exactly and what you do there in a general sense. Nice articles, though.
Thanks Becca, our new website for lower dover will be done in the next day or two, and should answer all your questions. Thanks for stopping by! check it out this weekend. http://www.lowerdoverbelize.com
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Great article. I write extensively about using coffee grounds in the garden and always love finding others out there doing the same. Cheers.