Gardeners urged to sprinkle coffee on garden this February

Gardeners up and down the UK are being urged to take action before spring starts and the weather warms up again.

It's been a freezing cold winter with lots of snow, ice and frost battering our gardens. But with snowdrops and daffodils already beginning to show green shoots, it won't be long until warmer weather returns - and brings pests with it.

Slugs and snails are a constant, year-round battle for gardeners.

The hungry molluscs will stop at nearly nothing to strip your garden of everything you lovingly planted, chewing through strawberries, raspberries, tomato plants, potato foliage and every type of flower in their quest to satisfy their seemingly unending hunger.

Slug and snail populations exploded last summer thanks to the unseaonably wet conditions, which in turn means lots of slug and snail breeding will have left even more eggs than usual in the ground.

Slugs will mate and lay eggs through the autumn to make even more for the following spring, and soon they will begin to hatch out and attack our spring growth.

But gardeners are sharing a top tip which can help control and repel slug populations before that happens - instant coffee.

Cheap coffee grounds aren't just a way to perk up your morning routine, but they can also hand everything growing in your garden a boost too.

Caffeine is toxic to slugs and snails and some garden experts therefore swear by it as a method of pest control.

Word of warning, though, coffee is a very painful method for slugs to die, worse than salt, so don't apply coffee grounds directly to any slugs or snails (stamping on them would be much quicker and less cruel).

Instead just sprinkle the coffee grounds onto soil and around raised beds or pots during dry, clear weather, and then when it does rain, the slugs won't cross the coffee, thereby protecting your precious flowers and crops.

In studies, coffee grounds were found to reduce slug and snail numbers by between 50 and 90 percent.

The coffee won't have any harmful effects on your plants either, in fact some studies ave found that caffeine actually boosts plant growth.

Gardening blog Tea and Coffee says: "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."