COFFEE GROUNDS FOR THE GARDEN

     Something interesting about coffee grounds:  For my birthday, a friend sent some summer phlox and they were just roots and tiny greenery.  After I planted them, I noticed pill bugs all over them and they would have eaten all of the new foliage.  I have used coffee grounds to keep snails off of  plants and thought  I would try them with pill bugs and it worked.  It's been on the ground for several days and my tiny foliage is growing and no pill bugs or snails.  If you try this, I would like to tell you that if you put a lot at one time, after a few waterings, the coffee grounds will get packed down.  So, just break it up  and sprinkle more coffee grounds around the plants at risk.  I always pack it on, just not on top of the plants.

     Starbucks is very glad to give away bags of their used coffee grounds.  The two stores near me leave the bags of grounds outside the back door and anyone is welcome to them.  I don't drink coffee, I drink green tea, but it's worth the trip to pick up these coffee grounds.  They're so good for your garden.  I've been told that it isn't so much the coffee grounds, but the fungus that grows on the coffee grounds that is so beneficial.

  These black swallowtail caterpillars were very small yesterday.  They were still in their brown skin, but I could see a little of the yellow, black, white and green stripes.  Today, I went out to check on them and they were much larger than they were, yesterday.  It's like, when they shed that brown skin they exploded.  I've never noticed that before, and it was very interesting.  There are several and they're hanging out on the fennel and the parsley.

 I keep my Ezekiel bread in the freezer.  When I was taking the frozen slices out of the bag, the top part broke off and when I took them out of the toaster oven, they looked like doll blouses.