🌎 Earth Day Tips for Better Gardening
It’s gardening season! Get your hands dirty and dig into the lessons we’ve learned from coffee farming. We believe exceptional coffee begins with the farmers, and we prioritize building relationships to understand their experiences and make sure our partnerships support their communities! In honor of Earth Day, here are some of the lessons we’ve learned from their work farming our super smooth beans. Cheer is at hand!
🤲 Patience
It takes coffee plants between three and four years to mature and bear fruit (the beans we all love). Once coffee plants reach maturity, it can take up to 11 months for the fruits to ripen enough for harvest.
Lesson: Stay patient. Take consistent care of your plants, pruning their leaves, refreshing their soil and protecting them from predators and inclement weather. It may take a long time to achieve the garden of your dreams, but it is about the journey, not the destination—and the destination is pretty great.💧Water, Water and Water
Coffee plants require lots of water but begin to wilt in waterlogged (excessively wet) soil. Farmers have to maintain a delicate balance between hydration and too much moisture. To manage this tightrope, they create intricate watering schedules and utilize techniques like rainwater harvestation and drip irrigation.
Lesson: Get creative with water management. Learn in-depth about how much water your plants require and what methods are best. That way, you can keep your plants thoroughly and appropriately hydrated without wasting water.
💩Organic Fertilization
Coffee Plants, especially when farmed en masse, demand a lot of nutrients that can deplete soil, making it less arable over time, leading to degradation and organic matter loss. There are many ways that farmers combat this, like enriching soil with composted coffee byproducts and manure and maintaining ground cover via mulch and cover crops.
Lesson: Organic mulches and ground cover plants help control weeds, keep soil moist and prevent erosion. Start your own at-home compost (we have a lot of suggestions) and identify ways to enrich your soil so you can keep gardening for a long time.🐞Biodiversity
One of the best ways farmers reduce soil erosion while repelling natural pests and predators is by creating diverse microenvironments that function in many ways. Placing coffee plants under tree shade or planting crops that compensate for the coffee’s struggles helps farmers enrich their soil and maintain the integrity of their coffee long term.
Lesson: Identify compatible, diverse plants that attract birds and insects that naturally control pests. If you have space in your garden, consider planting an appropriate tree to provide shade cover. Developing insect hotels, water sources and nesting areas can support your current plants and help your garden grow beyond your initial plans. Your plant babies deserve it, and you can do it!
