Caffeine Buzz

Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. In Florida, no matter where you are, insects will find you and eventually your plants, too. The other week while doing a few chores outside, I walked by the king sago (Cycas revoluta) growing near my garage and noticed a decent portion of its inner, lower fronds near the petioles turning white. Upon closer inspection ... Hey wait a minute, some of this white stuff is moving! Yep, tiny white specs were roaming all over the inside of this cycad and apparently attempting to suck the life out of it.
Not sure how they found my sago (guess it doesn’t matter), but it appears the dreaded Asian cycad scale has landed in my front yard. This pest has put a hurting on Florida landscapes by wiping out multitudes of king and queen sagos, cardboard palms, and coonties ever since its Sunshine State discovery near Miami in 1996.

Now knowing what I was facing, I had a plan for these buggers thanks to recalling an article I wrote about two years ago. In the piece, I interviewed Tom Broome, owner of The Cycad Jungle in Lakeland, FL, about a somewhat unorthodox method of pest control he found to be successful on Asian cycad scale. The weapon of choice --- spent coffee grounds.
Packed with beneficial nutrients for nitrogen-loving plants, spent coffee grounds used in gardens as a top dressing and a compost addition is nothing new. However, the grounds’ main ingredient (caffeine) apparently makes a mere top dressing into something with natural insecticide properties, too. According to Broome, the caffeine alkaloids left over in the coffee grounds kill the scale. And, the higher the caffeine content (e.g., what you find in espresso beans), the better.

In my mission to gather grounds, I didn’t have to brew pot after pot to get what I needed. A quick stop at my nearest Starbucks to ask for a bag of its “Grounds For Your Garden” was all it took. The five-pound bags of the used grounds, which are part of the coffeehouse giant’s ongoing environmental initiative, are complimentary to customers and anyone who asks.

With my bag of busted beans in hand, it was time to trim and treat my sago. The infestation was pretty dense in the fronds I removed.

Mulching around the entire root area is important for the method to be effective. Since the rainy season has arrived here, there will be plenty of precip to help the alkaloids sink in and do their work.

Crop protection, whether organic, conventional, or even unconventional --- as in this case, is something all Florida growers, landscapers, and home gardeners need to take into account and have a plan for. Many pros usually have multiple plans of attack in their arsenal.

Thanks to our hospitable climate and multiple ports of entry, invasive pest pressure is always going to be present. Frequent scouting and early intervention with the right chemistries are keys to productive pest control.

That's all for now regarding this sago saga. Hopefully the end result will be one that not only purges the pests, but also perks up the plant.

A Valuable Lesson

About every other day, my 4-year-old daughter brings home something from school that represents the fruits of her labor. I’m always interested to see what she is working on and learning about in the classroom and outside of it. It’s cool to see the book she’s made, the picture she drew, or any of the other clever items she helped make that were designed to nourish her creativity and expand her growth in knowledge. The other day, I was quite pleased to see her bring home a little squash plant. The tiny seedling, which was barely peeking out over the plastic cup in which it was placed, was none the worse for wear after digging it out from the bottom of her back pack. While there are many effective learning tools available, there’s nothing like a living, tangible object to drive home a point. And what a fine lesson this could be in not only how plants grow, but also where food really comes from.

Often, the hard work that goes into growing, packing, and shipping foods that feed the world is taken for granted. While the local supermarket is quite a sight for a wide-eyed child, us adults know the food that fills the shelves doesn’t just magically appear. Given that fact, it doesn’t hurt to teach and/or remind our future generations how food truly gets from the plot to the plate.

The other day, when I went to visit my daughter’s elementary school for a scheduled function, I stumbled upon a nice surprise as I was walking through the campus. Two decent-sized edible garden areas were focal points around the courtyard. There was a good variety of attractive veggies and herbs in different stages of growth and development: how very symbolic of the dynamic that makes up every school community. Kudos to the teachers and school administrators in sharing this concept with our kids. Talk about feeding young minds.

High marks for this elementary school veggie garden.

In a little more than a week’s time, my daughter and I have since transplanted her seedling into a bigger pot to let it stretch its roots. So far, the daily routine of morning sun, mid-day heat/humidity, and afternoon/early evening rain has done the little squash plant some good. It has gotten taller and produced four more leaves and counting. I’m really looking forward to watching the continued growth in this little plant and in my little girl, of course.