coffee beans

Ants, Beans and Scales

| Flower Roberts

Must I do battle every single day here?

I paused to admire my new little green coffee beans on my coffee tree.

There seemed to be quite a bit of action around the beans.

Ants were busily running back and forth along the branches.

They were tending to their flock of scales. A nasty insect that sucks sap.

There was a busy little food chain with my beans at the bottom.

For the next hour, I sat in the rain with skewers and Q-tips.

Interfering with nature.  I killed hundreds of scales.  The ants skittered away.

The removal was followed by spritzes of warm Dawn water.

First my buds and now my beans!

My bunnies better not be next!

Oooh Wee Baby!

Warrior Flower

Green Coffee Beans

| Flower Roberts

Have you ever seen coffee beans growing on trees?

IMG_6242

I had this experience recently.

My adventure started out as a trip to a new little Colombian restaurant, Orobi Cafe’,

IMG_6565
Orobi’ Cafe Coffee from Troutman, NC

just outside the town of  Troutman, NC.

They had large photographs of coffee trees and some small coffee trees in the cafe’.

This lead to an exciting conversation about the family growing their own coffee beans.

I was invited to come to the greenhouse to see the indoor coffee plantation.

IMG_6228

Lovely Maria is the grower of the non-genetically-modified Arabica bean trees.

IMG_6246

All her plants come from one seventeen- year-old “mama tree.”

IMG_6238
Arabica coffee tree

IMG_6248

I have been invited back to witness the days of flowering in May.

Now, I have another reason to look forward to spring.

Just in case you were wondering, yes, I came home with my own little coffee tree.

IMG_6549

FLOWER