How to Grow Green Coffee Seeds

Grow your own coffee plant from green seeds.

Growing your own coffee plant from green seeds is fairly easy, and you can grow the seedlings indoors. You can even continue to grow the mature coffee tree in a greenhouse using pruning to restrict its height. Germinating coffee seeds takes the right soil medium, container and care. Typically, freshly harvested green coffee seeds take about 2 ½ months to germinate.

Things You'll Need

• Green coffee seeds
• Seed tray or planter pots
• Sand or vermiculite
• Water spray bottle
• Lightweight potting mix or friable loam
• Grass mulch
• Complete granular fertilizer
• Nutritional foliar spray

Instructions

Germinate the Seeds

1. Soak the green coffee seeds in room-temperatures water for about 24 hours. Fill a seed tray, planter pot or other container with damp sand or vermiculite. Ensure that the container has drainage holes in the bottom.

2. Place the coffee seeds on the damp sand or vermiculite, and then spread more of the damp medium on top of the seeds. The seeds should be about ¼- to ½-inch deep in the sand or vermiculite.

3. Water the coffee seeds daily or every other day using a water spray bottle to keep the sand or vermiculite damp. Ensure that the excess water drains freely from the bottom of the container.

4. Remove the coffee seeds from the vermiculite or sand after they germinate and begin to sprout. Handle the young seedlings carefully so that you don't damage them.

5. Prepare a seed tray or planter pot with drainage holes in the bottom by filling it with a lightweight, porous potting soil mixture or a friable loam soil with lots of humus. Plant the germinated coffee seeds about 1 ¼ inches deep with the flat side of the seed pointing downward.

6. Sprinkle the lightweight soil mix over the coffee seed but don't pack the soil down. Spread a ½-inch-thick layer of grass clippings or similar mulch on top of the soil mix.

7. Water the coffee seeds lightly every day to keep the soil mix evenly moistened at all times. Remove the grass mulch from the top of the soil mix after the coffee seeds have fully germinated and sprouted above the soil layer.

Seedling Care

1. Place the coffee plant seedlings in a spot that has full sunlight to partial shade, where the plant is protected from drying winds. Maintain air temperatures of 59 to 75 degrees F, but no warmer than 86 degrees or colder than 41 degrees. Coffee plants also enjoy high humidity.

2. Water your coffee plant deeply and regularly whenever the topmost layer of soil begins to feel dry to the touch. Reduce or stop watering the coffee plant during late winter, and then begin watering regularly again in spring to promote flowering and fruiting.

3. Feed your young coffee plant with a complete granular fertilizer at a rate of 1/8- to ¼-lb. per month. Use a fertilizer formula containing a ratio of 6- to 10-percent nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash with 2- to 6-percent magnesium. Older coffee trees usually require three to four applications of foliar nutritional sprays containing iron or ferrous sulfate per year in spring and summer.

Tips & Warnings

• Obtain green coffee seeds from a supplier that can guarantee freshness and date of harvest. Green coffee seeds germinate best within four months of harvest, while older seeds can take much longer to germinate -- if they sprout at all.

• Beware of lawn equipment injuries to your coffee plant, which can kill the tree. If you're growing the coffee tree in your yard outdoors, make a grass-free area of 2 to 5 feet from the trunk to prevent lawnmower or weed-eater injuries. Spread a 2- to 6-inch-thick layer of organic mulch in this size area around the tree, keeping the mulch about 8 to 12 inches from the trunk's base.

References

• University of Florida: Coffee Growing in the Florida Home Landscape
• Coffee Research: Growing Coffee Beans at Home

Resources

• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: Coffee
• Pacific Northwest Extension: Propagating Plants from Seed