Growing Coffee from Seed

As I mentioned in a previous post, we wound up starting about 100,000 plants from seeds last year. I get pretty excited when I see the "viveros" (nurseries).  It is better to wait until the rainy season to start seeds, so you don't have to do a lot of manual watering.

What we found out is that it really is best if you can start seeds in your own soil. The plants do better if you start them in the same type of soil as they are going to live in later.

You have to start the seeds in the local soil, after the rainy season begins, which in our region (Matagalpa state) starts in April.

Starting plants from seeds.

In the photo above, you can see the seeds sitting on top of the tiny green stem of the plant. In some cases, you can see the seed shell coming off the first set of leaves. When the seedling gets to be about 4" tall above the level of the soil, with two leaves, it is transplanted.   It is important to make sure you only keep the plants which have ONE root (a "bifurcated", or double root, is not a plant that will grow well).  You can see the date in that photo above is 7/30/2010. We should have started these sooner, but last year is the year that we bought 100,000 plants and lost 60,000 to fungus. It takes about 4-5 weeks for the plants to be ready for transplantation.

The seedlings are out of the common bed of soil, ready to go into their own individual bags of soil.

The seedlings after they have been transplanted into their own bags. You can see the row of bags in the back of the photos has the most immature plants.

This is a vivero of very young plants. They thrive in filtered sunlight with daily waterings from Mother Nature, and from us, if it doesn't rain on time.

These plants are bigger. They have four leaves on them.

If you are patient, and lucky, and the weather is good, and about a billion other things go right, your plants eventually look like this:

Coffee plants ready to be transplanted.

Can you see why I get excited?  Below you can see how the plants look once they have been transferred to the soil of the farm. 

You can see one of our young coffee plants next to the scarecrow that one of our workers has carved with a machete into this tree stump. The scarecrows are carved to scare away the devil. The wood is infiltrated with a particular type of fungus that makes it soft that makes it look black and furry. You can also see some young coffee plants behind the scarecrow, under the older trees.

Other Crops We Grow on the Farm

One of our goals for the finca (farm) was to maintain a rich polyculture. When we purchased the land, some of the land had been (stupidly) cleared of foliage, including some of the old-growth trees that provide the natural shade canopy that makes our coffee so rich and prevents acid development in the beans. Shade allows us to grow a gentle cup of coffee.

Old growth trees provide shade for the coffee.

Because we had to provide shade for certain areas, we looked into what local crops we could grow that would offer both shade and food. Bananas are a natural pick. Our farm is too high to be the ultimate banana-growing environment. Bananas like heat more than coffee does, but we can still grow bananas, which we do.

Banana trees supplement the old growth canopy, some of which was cut away by previous owners.

Green bananas from the farm, ready to go to town. Strangely, Nicaraguans pay a premium for green bananas.

One of the parcels of land we purchased has mature papaya trees. Papayas also provide the ideal filtered shade for the coffee.

Big papayas, on the tree....

Field of papaya trees.

After we purchased the first piece of land that is now part of the farm, the price of beans and corn went up so fast that our workers were having trouble keeping up. We decided to plant some beans and corn on the farm so that they would have food they could afford, and so that they didn't have to go all the way to town (2+ hours on foot plus the bus) to get staples that we could grow on site.

Corn grown on the farm. Nicaraguans use young (not fully ripened) corn to make a popular beverage, so these were picked early.

Field of corn on the farm. Unlike the fields of corn you see driving through Indiana or Illinois, our corn field is far from flat,and it is a rich polyculture. No sprays are used to prevent the growth of weeds or insects. "Live and let live."

When we were in Matagalpa in August of 2010, we saw many women carrying baskets full o little baggies of fried, what looked like potato chips, on their heads. These women were like the Nicaraguan vending machines. They were everywhere. We bought some of these chips, which were malanga chips. They were kind of like potato chips, but denser and less greasy. Also, we noticed that the bag of malanga chips were still crisp after 3 days, while the open bag of potato chips we purchased at the same time were soggy.

Field of malanga plants on the farm. Malanga grows in the wet areas. Alex, our business manager, is in the middle of two farm workers.

Harvested malanga being bagged up for sale.

We loved the malanga chips. Nicaraguans also eat chayote, which looks like a thick-skinned pear, but is actually a vegetable.  More on that tomorrow....