Coffee Plant: How To Grow And Care For The Beans In Your Garden

Under normal conditions, the coffee plant grows in the warm sun and temperatures of the tropics. However, thanks to modern technology and science, it is also quite possible to grow and harvest this plant in your indoor garden.

• The best bet in obtaining the coffee seed to grow in your garden an indoor plant is only available to those who actually live in countries that grow the plants.

• For these people, plucking the freshly grown coffee cherry off a garden plant is the ideal circumstance, and will likely lead to the freshest harvest.

• For those that do not live in an area that grows coffee, however, you should not despair. You can still purchase coffee plants from a green coffee supplier, and a simple google search will turn up results.

• The coffee seeds should be watered every day. After the seed completely germinates in its new environment, you have two possible courses of action. Either leave the plant be, or plant it in a low pH, high nitrogen porous soil.

• While growing the plants, make sure they receive plenty of artificial light. The plant will have to be grown inside, as the barest hint of cold weather will kill the plant immediately.

Though you can grow a great tasting coffee bean at home, you should expect to wait 2 or 3 years before the plant has matured enough to harvest the very best beans from the product.

Coffee plant Image

There are two types of coffee plant that can be produced: sun-coffee and shade-grown coffee.

In its natural habitat, the plant is shade-grown, however, most large scale coffee plantations grow sun-coffee in order to make better and more efficient use of their work force and growing area.

There are both environmental and taste concerns that go into the argument against sun-coffee and for shade-grown coffee. Discover how coffee grounds help plants

The environmental concerns of producing sun-coffee center on the fact that sun-coffee requires a complete deforestation in order to grow.

Not only is this thinning of the trees bad for the tree and soil, it is also believed to be harmful to the native bird populations of many Latin American countries where coffee is grown.

As many of these birds require trees for nesting, raising their young, hiding from predators, and for food purposes, their populations experience a sharp decline as those trees are erased.

Shade-grown coffee grows in the shade of these larger trees and does not require as much clearing of land, thus allowing these birds to continue to thrive in their natural habitat.

A second environmental concern of sun-coffee is that its counterpart, shade-grown coffee, is better for the soil than sun-coffee traditionally is.

Shade-coffee provides a natural mulch for the ground. It also lives twice as long and generally does not require as much of the soil’s resources.

In addition to environmental concerns, there are issues with the sheer taste of shade-grown coffee versus sun-coffee. Much like the discussion of organic produce versus inorganic produce, the natural quality of the shade-grown coffee is believed by many to have a superior taste, since shade-grown coffee is the natural habitat.

Secondly, shade-grown coffee has smaller coffee cherries that house the beans, and this tends to concentrate the flavor of the coffee.

In production, there are two types: sun-coffee and shade-grown coffee. Environmentalists and coffee snobs alike prefer the latter, due to the superior taste that comes at a lesser cost to the planet’s resources.