Just attended a fascinating presentation by Ramiro Lobo, farm advisor in San Diego County with the University of California Cooperative Extension, about growing coffee in Southern California. The short of it is that there are a bunch of reasons to try it — even if you don’t drink coffee.
Seedlings of the Typica variety given to me by Ramiro Lobo
It’s a pretty plant, with glossy green leaves, white and fragrant flowers, and red (usually) fruit. It grows very well in shade; in fact, at my house it refuses to grow well in even half a day’s sun. And it can be grown in a pot indoors.
Here are some photos of a coffee bush located in San Diego’s Balboa Park that I wrote about last summer. (Click here to read that post.) It’s proof that one can grow a healthy coffee plant outdoors in Southern California.
The bush is about head high and growing in the shade of a tree.
Loaded with cherries, many of which are ripe for picking here in late July.
Bloom about to open.
A few tips from Ramiro Lobo on how to have success growing coffee:
- They like high humidity, so if you don’t live close to the ocean they will appreciate being among, even under, other plants.
- They will also appreciate growing among, even under, other plants because they enjoy shade. In coffee-producing areas of the world, it is often said that coffee likes about 50% shade.
- They like being watered from above, having their leaves washed off.
- They will be damaged by freezing temperatures. Choose the appropriate micro-climate of your yard or grow indoors.
- Use a slightly acidic mix if growing in a pot. A fairly large plant can be sustained in a 15-gallon pot.
Incidentally, a friend at the meeting showed me photos of her 13-year old coffee bush growing in a 15-gallon pot. It had been planted as a seed collected from Panama by her son. The bush is now gorgeous and productive, and she said that these days she mostly chews on the cherries and spits the beans out under the bush so they can germinate; she gives the new plants that grow from those beans to friends. Once, however, she did process the coffee cherries into dried beans to roast. It was quite a process, she said — such a process that she hasn’t bothered doing it again.
But how many people are lucky enough to have grown and processed and roasted their own coffee? Maybe a few more in the future if Ramiro Lobo can help it.
Hello there, i’ve been working in Honduras for the last 6 years, and their coffee is pretty darn good, but a few years ago i had to go work in Panama for a couple of weeks, and found that their coffee was just as good, if not better. I was wondering if you could lead me in the direction of finding coffee seeds from Panama? I’d appreciate anything you can do, thanks
Lou
Hi Lou,
I’m sorry but I don’t know of anywhere to buy Panamanian coffee seeds from if your intention is to grow them into plants. A web search turns up places that sell green coffee from Panama, so you might want to try that and then take your chances with how well they germinate. If the green beans are very old, they might not germinate well.
That being said, there are so many factors that go into the ultimate taste of a coffee drink, and the country of origin of the bean is only one. The variety is another. The processing after harvest is another. The growing conditions, such as elevation, would be another of the many factors.
If taken care of properly, will a coffee plant live outside in Apple Valley Cal ?
Hi Sandra,
Unfortunately, I highly doubt it. My place is warmer than Apple Valley in winter and all but two of my coffee plants froze last winter. Also, there was a large experimental planting at Cal Poly in Pomona that froze last winter.
It is pretty easy to grow coffee plants in a large container, however. Then you can just bring the plants inside on cold winter nights.
Hi Greg,
We live in LA, curious to know where we can procure seedlings? We are avid fruit/veg/herb gardeners and do have several good places that get 50+% shade. Greatly appreciate the help.
Hi Kim,
It so happens that I’m drinking a cup of coffee as I write this. Wait, I’m drinking a cup of coffee almost every time I write anything.
Glad you asked this question. Sorry I haven’t already included the information in the post above.
You can procure coffee plants a number of ways. Some plants I’ve bought from a nursery. Often nurseries sell coffee plants among their house plants (so they’re kept indoors or in lots of shade). Just look for a label that says it is “Coffea arabica”, and not “robusta” or “canephora”. Arabica is the species of coffee that we almost always drink, and those beans will give you the flavor you expect.
Secondly, you can try buying seedlings on Ebay. (I’ve never done this myself, but a friend says he got some good ones that way.)
Thirdly, you can germinate some green coffee beans/seeds yourself. I’ve done this many times, and it’s not difficult. If you know of a coffee plant anywhere, just grab a few ripe cherries, chew them, spit out the seeds and plant them “monkey face down”. There are coffee plants all over Southern California. Ask the Master Gardeners in L.A. County or check at the Arboretum in Arcadia. You’ll find them, and I’m sure people will be willing to share a few cherries so you can start some plants.
You could also buy green coffee beans from somewhere such as Sweet Maria’s in Oakland. That’s where I often buy green beans to roast. If you buy the freshest beans they have, you should get better germination of the beans/seeds.
I’m unsure of the typical harvest season in different parts of the world, but I did visit a coffee farm in the highlands of Costa Rica last winter and they’d just finished harvest in late February. So buying green beans from them soon thereafter would probably be a good bet. I brought home some green beans myself and they germinated fine. (The farm was part of Cafe de Monteverde.)
Hi! I’m interested in moving to Temecula and wondered if coffee can grow there? J understand shade is a priority. Is there another agricultural favorite that could assist in growing coffee, utilizing the same type of soil and providing shade? Thanks.
Hi Sydney,
Temecula is an iffy place for coffee. Might work but might not, depending on where in Temecula you are. Anywhere in Temecula won’t be great for coffee though, as coffee likes higher humidity and warmer winters and cooler summers.
There’s a big experimental planting of coffee at Cal Poly Pomona. The coffee plants there are surviving when planted on a hillside, but they planted some down in the valley and those plants got frozen in the winter before last. (Incidentally, the coffee plants in my yard in Ramona got frozen in the same cold spell.) Pomona is about as far inland as you can expect coffee to grow acceptably, but obviously you must still pay attention to microclimates in that location.
Coffee does well interplanted with avocados and bananas. I’ve seen this in the tropics, of course, but also here in California.
Hi
Can you grow coffee in Escondido? I live West on the 15, South of the 78 and North of Lake Hodges. Our downhill yard is about 40 degrees in slope and faces Northeast. We have a large Avocado tree and several Citrus and Apples. I’m wondering if the yard is shady enough, or maybe even under the he Avocados would work?
Hello Greg,
I found your posts in my reading on coffee grown in San Diego and was curious if you had any success fruiting any of your plants or knew anybody locally that would sell or trade seedlings. I’m also in Ramona so I would love to get specimens that have managed to survive here.
Hi Forrest,
Back in 2018 all of my coffee plants were killed by one extremely cold night when I wasn’t home to protect them. (The temperature was probably around 26.) I’ve been meaning to replant and keep them in pots for a few years to let them size up before putting them into the ground, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I have no coffee plants in my yard at the moment.
I don’t know anyone in Ramona with large coffee plants, but I know some good ones on a hillside with good cold-air drainage in east Poway. If I were you, I would visit Walter Andersen’s in Poway and get some plants from them. I’ll also keep my eye out for seedlings and update here if I find anything.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the insight. That’s too bad you lost them all. I checked Walter Anderson’s and they did have little seedlings at a reasonable price, $6.50 for a 4 inch pot with 8 seedlings in there that all seem happy even after separating them. I also found more mature ones at Exotica Rare Fruit in Vista for a little more money.
Super old thread but Walter Andersen has 5 different varieties for sale right now in sleeves that are good growing varieties. $40. They were grown by Frinj Coffee which you can find their website. They had Geisha which I was looking for.
Thanks, Jason. Was that Point Loma or Poway Andersen’s?
Grangetto’s Escondido also has Frinj plants. I bought a Geisha too, and a Laurina.
And I recently found a pot of about ten seedlings at a Home Depot for $10. I teased them apart and replanted the seedlings individually. I don’t know the variety, but they are some kind of arabica.