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Grown Your Own Coffee at Home

Grow Your Own Coffee Bean At Home? It Looks Like Mission Impossible. But it can be done.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to reach into a tree in your garden and easily pull out some coffee beans roast them yourself?

It helps if you live in a warm region but coffee can grow even in the far North.

All you need is time, a a lot of patience and a bit of care and feeding to grow your own coffee from seed to roaster. It is no dificult plant to take.

It takes four years before you’ll be able to harvest your first beans. During that four years and there on, you will enjoy a very pretty evergreen type tree. Coffee Arabica plant has dark green foliage, white fragrant flowers with jasmine aroma, and brightly colored berries.

A mature plant can produce as much as two to four pounds of coffee per year.

These trees are not difficult to grow and can be done as a potted tree. If possible, the tree should always be outdoors in the summertime. They thrive in irdirect or filtered sunlight and require a lot of water. Either by doing it yourself or in areas where there is heavy rainfall, yet plenty of sunlight. You should use a good potting soil and keep the soil moist but not soggy. You will have to have a pot that drains well. The best growing conditions are in a temperature range of 65 degrees Fahrenheit to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
These plants like jungly environment. They enjoy high humidity, mist and clouds. Prefers filtered sunlight, at least 4 hours a day.

You will not have to fertilize, but for best results and maximum yield, they should be fed every 2 weeks from March to October, and then monthly from November through February.
Or you can apply half strength fertilizer every other week, then pollinate by hand to ensure fruit set, water twice a week and mist regularly.
Tree/shrubs can, if not limited, will grow to a height of between 16 and 40 feet, however, you really should keep it pruned to about 6 feet. It will be easier to maintain and will produce the largest and healthiest yeild.

When home growing coffee beans, you should start with a freshly picked coffee cherry.

Buy a young tree

The easiest way to grow your own coffee is to shop around online at nurseries to find one that sells three to four year old plants. You’ll get a young tree about four feet tall that is ready to flower and set fruit for the first time.
If you have access to a live coffee plant, you can try to grow your own coffee from a stem cutting and avoid the whole seed roulette game. Choose a stem that is 3/16 to 5/16 of an inch in diameter. Remove one of the two leaves on the stem. Cut the second leaf in half. Dip the end of the stem into rooting hormone for about 15 seconds. Put the cutting immediately into a small container with moist growing medium. Cover with a polyethylene tent. Place in moderate shade. Gradually open and remove tent as plant roots and begins to grow.
Repot into larger containers as necessary.

Grow Your Own Coffee from Beans

Soak about twenty beans in an inch of water. Within 12-24 hours, you’ll find that five to eight of them have a tiny white bump growing from the end. This is the coffee plant embryo.

Grow Your Own Coffee from Seeds

Plant the germinated seeds in vermiculite in a deep pot about 1.5” deep. Do use a real pot. The coffee bean will need to set a very deep tap root, and small seedling pots don’t give enough room. Water well. Cover pot with plastic wrap or a plant tent. Keep moist, but don’t overwater. Wait 60 days.

It will be about 60 days before you see a small gooseneck sprout poking its way out of the soil. This is the most difficult part of starting plants to grow your own coffee. Some enthusiasts admit that they get a living plant from about one of every 50 germinated seeds. The long sprouting process makes it very likely that the seeds will rot before they grow.

It will be another three to four months before your coffee plant has leaves, and up to nine months before it shows true leaves. Keep watering it well, and repot it when the roots start getting crowded.

Care and Feeding of Your Coffee Plant
Coffee plants need a LOT of water and a moderate amount of fertilizer in the spring in order to set fruit. If you buy a nursery plant, you’ll get watering and fertilization instructions with the plant.

Where to find What you need?

You can find good instructions about Coffee Growing in the Florida Home Landscape on University of Florida’s agricultural extension page.

You can find seeds or small plants from exoctic plant stores online or maybe even be able to obtain information for aquiring them from your local greenhouse.

You can get coffee plants at Henry Fields Gurney’s. Compact dwarf, just 4 ft. tall. Dark foliage backs beautifully scented white blooms that become scarlet fruits. Price is $8.95 for one plant or $8.25 for 3 or more.

Look for more sellers online.

Here is a picture of nice coffee plant from Larry Manfredi, who lives in Homestead, Florida, USA.

Take a good cup of coffee.


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