Growing coffee

[sidewayss]

Re: Growing coffee

Will do. I have one plant in a wine barrel bought from a nursery thus far, so part of my learning curve is growing from seed just to test myself.
Looking forward to it TG.

What kind of coffee tree you have?

Gary at G

[Thundergod]

Re: Growing coffee

Dont know much about them Gary.
Bought from the Bay of Evil a few years ago.
Supposedly Arabica of some sort.
Picked up from Newtown after purchase.
Dont know where the seller got them from.

[A_M]

Re: Growing coffee

What kind of coffee tree you have?

I have a mix that have been all labelled Arabica : A couple of the ones in the ground are Byron Bay Red.

The handful of seeds I have for planting and some for you (if you want) are all from Albion and from a couple of Arabica trees (?) cultivated by Di Bella.

AM

[sidewayss]

Re: Growing coffee

Ill take whatever you all have there AM, and ill pay for the costs. Will PM you.

Im hankering for another tree to go with the one i already bought from a nursery, but theyre 45$ each, albeit they are almost 3 foot tall in wine barrels.

Gary at G

[every1luvsu]

Re: Growing coffee

Gary at G I know that you live fairly close to where I do, I take it if you have a few trees that we can grow coffee okay in our climate?

I previously knew nothing about growing coffee but after reading this thread I am interested in trying this at some point.

Ahh coffee snobs, the things you can learn!

[A_M]

Re: Growing coffee

Ill take whatever you all have there AM, and ill pay for the costs. Will PM you.

Im hankering for another tree to go with the one i already bought from a nursery, but theyre 45$ each, albeit they are almost 3 foot tall in wine barrels.

Gary at G

A small packet of Quality Beans with a proven germination rate is one it way.

Take ya time and make sure you have a place ready and then soak and then plant.

I PMéd you a short read and what I found was that while some developed the tiny white bump growing from the end. This is the coffee plant embryo. Other may take a little longer

I also planted (scooped and dumped) all that was left after I had done the first few manually. Thus I knew which were which :-) I found that with keeping water up to the area that many that showed no sign, actually did sprout.

Take ya time and enjoy the journey.

[sidewayss]

Re: Growing coffee

Looking forward to it. Thanks AM.

In the meantime will do as much research on growing coffee.

Will be dis-advantaged here in WA as conditions are less conducive to coffee than it is there in the east. But will give it the best shot.

If i find anything interesting, ill post the links here so others with some interest can follow suit if they want to.

The amount of coffee we grow will not endanger Andys Beanbay as the amount harvested, if any is not enough to be self sufficient.. More like an extension of our coffee journey.

[Luke_G]

Re: Growing coffee

It has been a long time since i have visited this thread. Good to see some new member getting into growing too

My plants have sky rocketed! I thought i should leave them be and not keep them at the recommended 6 foot hight but ill never be able to reach the tops next year and im 6.5"
Ill take some photos of my coffee jungle tomorrow if it is not raining again.

In regards to germinating seeds....
If you are getting your seed stock from your own plants or a friends plant i wouldd suggest letting the plant do its own thing and just leave 5-10 cherries on the plant. In time they will over ripen and drop off. 4-6 months later you will have lots of little coffee suckers under you plant. This is what i do with cherries that have been half chewed by birds or bugs.

I still have a few seeds from last year if anyone wants a few? They are still in the dried cherry but i can remove them before posting them.

[sidewayss]

Re: Growing coffee

Ill be happy to grab a few off you Caffeine Dealer.

Gary at G

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

i finally hulled the cherries i had left to dry in their skins. i had them outside on some trays and found the cockroaches in the garden were very partial to the dried skins, so i let them go at it and eventually they ate about 20% of the skins off. i dont recommend it though. dunno whether it was cockroach piss or what (do cockroaches piss?) but when i finally roasted them they were sour and awful.

one of my trees died last year and i had grave fears for the other three, but theyre still here, plus a couple of seedlings coming along nicely.

[Thundergod]

Re: Growing coffee

Heres a picture of my recent harvest after a burst of ripening.
There are still plenty more on the trees and I hope to get as much again soon.
The cherries in the picture weighed about 330g and with a few more from a couple of weeks ago totalled approx 350g after deseeding (They still have to be dried).

The second picture shows a strange find.
Occasionally I get 3 seeds out of a cherry.
More often than the occasional peaberry.

You can see from the pic that the three would fit together neatly inside the cherry as the normally flat sides are angled.

I cant recall having read anything on this phenomenon; has anyone else?

[GrahamK]

Re: Growing coffee

I picked and processed 341g from my tree a week ago and also found quite a few with 3 segments, and as you say angled to fit in. The "peaberries" appeared to be accompanied by a very thin, small a deformed bit that I presume was would normally become the 2nd bean.

GrahamK

[Thundergod]

Re: Growing coffee

The "peaberries" appeared to be accompanied by a very thin, small a deformed bit that I presume was would normally become the 2nd bean.

Ditto.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

Occasionally I get 3 seeds out of a cherry.

yeah, i get three to a cherry quite often too. i also get some funny-shaped beans that have another bean embedded into the side. the main bean seems to wrap around the other one.

maybe we dont see this in bought coffee because professionals would screen them out. im desperate to keep anything i can get. i doubt it affects the flavour much, but they would make a professional crop look less appealing to buyers.

tg, ill be interested to see how long your picking season lasts. it seems theres a bit of variation. my last three seasons went from july to november twice and from september to november. it looks like your trees are about to go crazy. probably next year.

[Thundergod]

Re: Growing coffee

@tonyt They flowered profusely last summer/autumn and the fruit set.
This year the nodes were prolific.
Now that the weathers warming up the fruit is ripening.
I cant see the picking going beyond November.

Maybe by then therell be more flowering to set the fruit for next year.

Note to self: need two more trees.