Here I am....
I didn't get any notification, but Ruth Ross shanghaied me on Facebook this morning.... We grow coffee here at about 800 feet on the East Side of the Island of Hawaii....
How can I help? Mima...you should have no trouble growing coffee if you can grow Gardenias. Same family. Closely related. Coffee is more robust...
I don't have any idea 'how to grow coffee', but I can tell you "how coffee grows' here.
Coffee is grown all over this island: the wet side (with GOOD drainage) and the dry side (with irrigation). It must be relatively salt tolerant because our wind travels quite a bit over the ocean before it gets to us. Our soil/rain is acidic (pH around 5 to 6...seldom 6) and it grows in/on lava rock/soil. We get between 100" - 160" of rain yearly and our lowest temp has been 56deg. There is a big difference between day and night temps...the night temps can often be20 to 30 degrees cooler in the winter.
When Googling information, have you found any papers written by the University of Hawaii CTAHR (College of Tropical Horticulture and Human Resources (don't ask, I have no clue how HR got involved)? I'll try looking for some links....Coffee being the BIG business as it is here there is a lot of attention given by the Extension Service.
BTW - The seeds you got are actually the coffee beans... they sprout up all over the place here...very viable. If it weren't such a valuable crop I think coffee would be considered invasive!!!!
Specific questions? Dave...ever thought about a heated greenhouse?
