COFFEE PLANTS
Coffea arabica ‘Typica’ L. is the variety selected by Linnaeus as typical of the coffee used in its native Ethiopia. It is the primary coffee grown on many farms around the globe and the basis for many new cultivars. ‘Typica’ coffee can grow to around 20’ tall but is usually kept to about 6 to 8 feet in many coffee producing regions to facilitate picking. In a pot in your home, coffee trees may be kept to any height desired.
Coffee trees have beautiful, dark green, heavily crenulated leaves and a thick, bushy form. The faintly fragrant white flowers are striking, if brief, before yielding tiny green fruits that take 6 months to grow and ripen to deep red, when they are ready for picking and processing.
At Candide’s Coffee Garden, we have been growing coffee for 7 years and drinking some of our own home-grown for 4 years. Processing coffee at home is a lot of work but a lot of fun, too, for the interested. There are many videos of the process on-line. The skins and pulp of the red coffee “cherries” are now seeing increased use for drinks and other preparations.
Coffee can be grown outdoors in frost-free environments, but coffee grown for the fruit should not be exposed to temperatures above 85 degrees F. High temperatures produce inferior coffee in Coffea arabica.
For in-person shopping at the nursery, we offer coffee trees from one gallon size to big 45-gallon trees, specimens often in fruit or flower.
We will never sell a cluster of tiny plants in a small pot. All our offerings are single plants grown to be 1-gallon and 3-gallon size individually. These are usually at least 1 and 2 years old, respectively, and so should begin to bloom within 1 to 2 years.
Visit our nursery for bigger sizes up to 45-gallon. All plants pictured on this website were grown from seed at our nursery.
CHILTEPIN PEPPER
Chiltepin pepper (Capsicum annuum variation glabrisculum) is the wild progenitor of all peppers known today (except for one or two species in the high Andes Mountains). Also known as “Bird Peppers”, it is native from the American southwest into much of Central America, where it is grown in home gardens. The fruits are used in many ways: as dried seasoning, in fresh green or red salsa, in jams and jellies and in innumerable home recipes.
The plant itself is a beautiful garden accent, its bushy form loaded with green and red tiny egg-shaped peppers.
Chiltepin pepper has a lot of flavor and a good deal of heat that dissipates on the palate relatively quickly. Its pre-Columbian name was “Flea Pepper” because its bite is sharp but soon forgotten.
In its native habitat Chiltepin becomes a small tree. It is often grown as an annual in home gardens, but can live 50 years if protected from frost. Check out the Chiltepins for yourself at our nursery!
OTHER PLANTS
At Candide’s Coffee Garden, we grow and offer a selection of plants chosen during our decades of professional gardening for their serviceability, sustainability, utility, and beauty.
Our offerings include native Sand Live Oak and Cabbage Palm, Fig trees, “antique” Roses, flowering perennials, self-seeding annuals, unusual groundcovers, Olive trees, and self-sustaining food plants such as Strawberries and the original native South American Pineapple, totaling around 50 species overall.
We’re not likely to have the kind of plants you often find at a garden center, but that’s our goal – provide unique plants that you DON’T find at a garden center! So plan a visit to see what we currently have growing.
