crazymadnaturalist-blog

[crazymadnaturalist-blog]

10 most useful insects in the garden... tomorrow afternoon :)

#nature #garden

[crazymadnaturalist-blog]

Polydesmidae, I found this millipede under big piece od bark

#millipede #insects #nature #naturalista #creepy crawlies

[crazymadnaturalist-blog]

Anybody gathering these for tea ? 😀

#cowslip #herbaltea #spring #nature #naturalista

[crazymadnaturalist-blog]

Coffea arabica- rewarding houseplant

Hi, today I’m going to write about coffea arabica - perfect plant for humid rooms with medium light.

It comes from Yemen and Ethiopia, but it’s been distributed to many warm parts of Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Pacific.

In these days Coffea arabica makes 60% of global coffea production.

You can grow it at home quite easily, you can’t expect home coffea production but you’ll have nice small tree with beautiful white flowers and surprising red “beans”.

Growing conditions are:

1. Room temperature - in lower temperatures coffea stuns its growth or dies

2. Humidity higher than 60%- I made a mistake when I put my coffea plant into the hot-dry room, it’s leaves turned brown (sometimes leaves die naturally), but coffea is hardy and it quickly grew back. Now I have to mist it every day to keep humidity high. You can mist it too to keep the plant healthy

3. Medium light - direct light would burn the leaves of this plant, low light- slow/stunned growth. You can grow it next to southern window, just assure the curtains block direct light

4. Slow-release citrus fertiliser - young plants should be fed every 2 months, bigger plants every month. I have fed them with green plant fertiliser and they look healthy

5. Penetrable soil- like the most of houseplants, you can add humus or manure. I like to add small rocks to the bottom of the container

6. Moist soil - warning- I overwatered my plants, than mold started to do her job and finally came the fungus gnats- small (and very annoying) flies whose larvae feeds on decomposing materials and sometimes roots. You should water it richly but less often

You can prune coffea by pinching the growth tip, it should be done to restrict the plants height.

You can put coffea plant outside in the spring and take it inside in the autumn when you grow them inside (colder regions- like me- Slovakia).

In the 4-5th year of plants life it starts to produce “beans”. You can pick them when they are red and make a fine cup of coffea :).

#coffeaplant #grower #houseplants #nature #coffeaarabica