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[Jansch42]

Hej seeders! 

As many of us gardeners have to deal with pests and other factors that could ruin our wonderful growings, there are many "life hacks" out there to prevent these.
I thought I would try some out and give you guys my results to help all of us having a good year without any troubles.

Background information:
I have been growing my own plants since 2011.
I currently live in the UK where (surprise!) It actually doesn't rain as much as you might think.
In fact, I have found the climate here to be very good to grow my plants. Especially my yucca palm trees love it here.
I work in the garden 7 days per week to prevent any pests as I don't want to use any chemicals.

The test:

Coffee to prevent pests

How it works:
After making yourself a good cup of coffee, take out the filter of your coffee machine. The wet Powder that's left in it can now be mixed into the soil around your plants.

My experience:

Even though I was very skeptical about this one in the beginning, I have actually found it to be very useful for outdoor gardening.
It helped me to keep snails and other animals away from my plants as the enzymes in the coffee spread throughout the surrounding soil. This prevents snails and other animals who get to the plants by trough/on the ground to go there as the caffeine left in the coffee is dangerous for them, which keeps them away.
Be careful though! For some reason the plants in my greenhouse did not like the coffee at all and i actually had to move them to a place where there was fresh soil. This might have something to do with the rain or temperature, but I would not risk it.

Cinnamon against fungi

This is an old one... Probably because of it's amazing effectiveness.

How it works:

After planting your new plant (seeds or clipping) sprinkle a good amount of cinnamon powder on the surrounding soil... Done.
Cinnamon has a lot of cleansing and fungi preventing properties which is why I wanted to give this one a try.

My experience:

This one is amazing!
I always had to deal with those annoying fungi but this trick really helped me out. I don't have to worry about my new seeds not coming to life anymore. Every time I see the smallest sign of fungi in the soil i just grab my cinnamon, sprinkle it onto the soil and... Done! After one night the fungus is gone and I can focus on other things when taking care of my plants.

I hope this could help you out a little.
I know how much of a struggle it can be to deal with all the dangers for our plants which is why i love to share my experience with everyone so that all of us can keep up with our passion without using expensive and harmful chemicals.

[BubbleCat]

I suppose the coffe one works based on the principle that caffeine is toxic and thus spoils the feast. Same thing works with tobacco (extract). It is safe to assume that most stuff that comes out of a plant can be potentially absorbed into the system of other plants.

[gollum]

@Jansch42 how much cinnamon do you use? cover all of the earth with a thin layer? or is this to much?

I tried different things. 1 thing which seems to work is good neem oil against many critters. I combine it with a bit of natron. But to much natron can fast hurt the plants.
I spray it on soil and leaves.

Another thing I do from time to time is soak plants in soap water. I put them into water so that they are totaly covered in slightly soaped water an let them stand for an hour. This kills many of the mites and similar insects which live in the soil. The soap is important to destroy the waters surface tension so the insects can not stand on the surface.

[DarkPines]

Sometimes I rub cinnamon on the fresh cuts of cactus. It seems to help I think lol idk. This is good to know!!

[ShareForFirst]

thanks for the tips about coffee

ten years ago, i put some mary  in the woods with manure.
such a bad idea, animals came and destroy all :/
i won't make the same bullshit ^^

but for my vegetable garden i will use coffee around my salads and all that the snails eat
I have seen somewhere that coffe contains some alcaloid in common with erythroxylum.
It can be one of these alcaloids which remove snails
furthermore coffee is a good soil for some mycorrhizal fungi and a good nitrogen fertilizer.

Fertilizing well your soil permit to your plant to grow well and to be healthy.
I'll try with cinnamon, i've some chlorophytum with that issue.

thanks a lot Jansch42