One pest can cause utter havoc in our gardens – but take action now and you’ll be thankful laterAlex Evans Deputy Audience Editor and Liam Ryder Digital Production Editor
08:51, 30 Aug 2025
Experts are urging gardeners to do one thing before the summer comes to a close(Image: Jurgute via Getty Images)
Gardeners in Devon have been urged to do one thing before the end of the month ahead of the colder months arriving.
The green-fingered among us spend hours outdoors making a peaceful and enjoyable space for all in our homes. But we constantly battle pests desperate to ruin the hard work we’ve put in.
Ravenous slugs and snails will strip the garden of almost everything we plant with love, eating their way through strawberries, raspberries, tomato plants, potato foliage and every kind of flower.
And as the weather becomes worse and the nights grow longer, the pesky molluscs will make more and more appearances.
Slug and snail populations are spurred on by wet weather and tend to worsen in September. They will have ideal conditions to spread throughout your garden and even worse, lay their eggs for the following year, reports the Express.
Slugs will mate and lay eggs throughout the autumn to produce even more slugs and snails for the next year. However, gardeners are sharing a top tip which can help manage and deter slug populations before that happens.
Protect the hard work you’ve put in to your garden with this handy, simple tip(Image: Marina Lohrbach via Getty Images)
Inexpensive coffee grounds aren’t just a way to liven up your morning routine, but they can also give everything growing in your garden a boost too. Caffeine is toxic to slugs and snails and some gardening experts therefore swear by it as a method of pest control.
A word of caution, though – coffee is an extremely agonising method for slugs to perish, more severe than salt, so avoid applying coffee grounds directly onto any slugs or snails. Treading on them would be far swifter and less barbaric.
Rather, simply scatter the coffee grounds across soil and surrounding raised beds or containers during dry, bright conditions. And then when rainfall occurs, the slugs won’t traverse the coffee, thus safeguarding your treasured blooms and produce.
Research says that coffee grounds decreased slug and snail populations by between 50 and 90 per cent. The coffee won’t cause any detrimental impact on your plants, either.
Coffee grounds are basically poison to slugs and snails(Image: pocketlight via Getty Images)
In fact, some research has discovered that caffeine actually enhances plant development.
Gardening blog Tea and Coffee explains: “Coffee grounds contain a chemical called alkaloid, which is poisonous to slugs. When slugs ingest coffee grounds, they suffer from severe dehydration and eventually die.
“For these reasons, slugs will avoid areas where coffee grounds have been sprinkled. While coffee grounds may not be the most effective way to keep slugs out of your garden, they can be a helpful tool in deterring these pests.”
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