Adding a Bit of Science to Luck = Locally Grown Coffee

This time last week I promoted a Haines Alaska Master Gardener's Class. I am happy to say that over the past 7 days 13 students have registered. The class starts Sunday, May 18, under the instruction of Michele Hebert from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. The Sheldon Museum and Cultural Center has graciously donated the Hakkinen Gallery as our classroom for the week. Thanks, too, to artist Bev Shup, who is postponing the installation of her show while we study horticulture.

Now, I am anxious to introduce some science into my growing practices. To date, I think I have just been lucky. For example, I started this blog by announcing that I was tossing some old lettuce and kale seeds into a mixture of Whitney Farms Compost and vermiculite. The fact that I now have lettuce is a testimony to the tenacity of the inner life of seeds, not to my intervention.

I have some seeds that I really really want to grow. So, I am following all the directions, from seed soaking time, to container cleaning, to soil sterilization, to optimum flat placement. You see, I have decided that to reduce my carbon footprint, I will grow my own coffee. This improbable quest started when I fell in love with the coffee plants growing at The Green Coffee Bean Company in Ketchikan.

One day, kind of like Jack in the Bean Stalk, Steve, TGCBC owner, tossed some green coffee beans into a pot of dirt. After a while - a long while, he said - they sprouted. Now he has several glistening 18" high plants. I was immediately beset with plant envy. I tried to hide it, but Steve noticed. He's that kind of guy. Quiet and keenly observant. The next time I visited he handed me several green beans. The beans came with a warning...keep them warm, moist, and above all, be patient. I installed what I thought was a most excellent mini-tropical environment over the heater in my boyfriend's bathroom. When it was time for me to return north, I left most explicit instructions to maintain the heat and keep the soil moist. By phone, I regularly inquired after green shoots, but nothing ... and nothing .... and nothing. Finally, on a return visit, I despondently emptied the cups, spilling the contents onto white sheets of scrap paper. Something alchemical must have taken place - from beans right into coffee. There wasn't any evidence that beans had ever lived in even one of those cups.

Distraught but not discouraged, I hopped on the Internet and ordered Coffea arabica and Coffea catura seeds from the Whatcom Seed Company: $3.84 and $3.29 for 12 seeds not including shipping and handling. The growing descriptions described in the catalogue pretty well matched what Steve had said: warm and moist.

Coffea arabica is easy to grow indoors, makes a very attractive houseplant and if it likes you well enough it will even reward you with flowers and berries. A six-foot plant can produce two to four pounds of coffee a year. Grow in medium light, or filtered or indirect sunlight. Use a rich, acid soil kept moderately moist. Peat moss in the potting mix will help provide acid conditions. Ideal temperatures are between 60 and 85 degrees. Give the roots room to grow. Hardy to 28F.

Coffea catura is an outstanding, dwarf arabica variety, which is a heavy bearer that does not require shading. Grows just 24" - 30" in height. In addition to producing the finest coffee beans, Coffea catura makes a splendid houseplant or, in warm climates, may be grown outdoors as an ornamental.

My boyfriend and I have an ongoing debate about instruction manuals: he reads them. I, on the other hand, believe that I am drawn to inanimate objects through some symbiotic relationship so if there is a problem we should just be able to "talk" about it. I am beginning to see the value of the instruction manual as the object's preferred mode of communication. I have taken to at least glancing at the instructions. Imagine my surprise when the set of instructions that accompanied my coffee beans said this: Seeds germinate in 6 weeks to 6 months at 75 degrees. Given the catalogue promo, I hadn't expected either the temperature requirement or the time to germination. When Steve it would take "a long while" for the beans to sprout, I had no idea.

I very much doubt that I can maintain a 75 degree temperature environment for 6 consecutive days, let alone 6 months - but I'm going to give it a try. Maybe some of the lettuce luck will rub off. To add to my luck, this time, I'm even going to sterilize my containers. And I'm going to follow the directions laid out in an excellent publication from the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service which explains that wood and plastic can be sterilized with a mixture of one part chlorine bleach to nine parts water. Clean the containers first and then let them stand in the bleach solution for 30 minutes. Dry before re-use. Wish me luck!

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