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Coffeed Nepenthes update


dvg

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Extraordinary success but a small question cross me the head.

Be that e coffee kills your sphaigne? The coffee(café) to apply him(it) to you in spraying(pulverizing) or in watering?

Thank you.

Gael,

Just use a french press to make the coffee as you usually would and pour it into the media once it has cooled down.

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  • 1 year later...

I've decided to try coffee fertiliser on my neps, after reading some fascinating stories and seeing photographs of the improvements on other websites, as well as this thread.

So, my experiment is being done with Sainsbury's own blend Fair trade coffee beans, medium strength 3. I haven't a clue whether it makes any difference or not, but i decided to buy beans instead of pre-ground, as i am a bit paranoid of modern food processing methods and packaging plants, but that's another story. I don't know if anything gets added to the beans during the grinding process or not, but i thought it better practice to buy beans and grind them myself.

Anyway, i'll do a brew tonight (trying to resist temptation to drink the entire lot) and then i'll leave it to cool and stew overnight. Tomorrow, i'll strain and dilute the coffee 50/50 with more cold water (to be on the safe side for my first experiment) and i'll top water the substrate around the plant. I think i'll avoid putting the coffee solution in the pitchers or foliar feeding for now, again, just to err on the safe side. I plan to do the top watering twice a year, so i'll take some photos tomorrow when i water them, and take some comparison shots in 6 months time.

As an additional experiment, i'm going to take a spare young ventricosa and repot it into my usual mix of orchid bark, charcoal, and sphagnum, but with a tablespoon of the leftover ground beans added to the potting mix.

 

Edit : wow, it's been 2 years since the last post, so who's still using coffee now and do you have any before and after photo's ?

Edited by Welshy
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The only issue i think i've read about on the net is that the bean grounds can go mouldy. But i'll give it a shot with a spare plant anyway, you can't beat the fun of doing your own experiments. I believe the resulting information sticks in the old grey matter better than reading countless forum posts, especially for me at my age :laugh2:

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I for one really advocate coffee as a fertiliser for nepenthes- it's worked wonders for a tricksy fusca I have so go for it! :D

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Despite the "slow release" comments here, you should flush the coffee out the day after application so that pathogens don't accumulate. The plants will take what they need and the soil will be re-acidified, so there is no reason to leave it in there.

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I haven't tried using just the grounds. The old liquid coffee seems to do the trick quite well for nepenthes. I think you might want to use the old grounds in the garden in place of peat moss. I also spread them around the bases of acid loving shrubs.

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I have always been slightly dubious about coffee and its supposed effects. 

 

At the end of the winter, my highland Nepenthes in the greenhouse tend to look a bit rubbish.  Sometimes I give them a bit of plant food and they perk up, sometimes I give them coffee and they perk up, and sometimes I don't feed them at all and they still perk up, which is down to temperatures and light and not nutrients.

 

It would be great to have some trials done with a number of seedlings, some without any feeding, some with commercial plant food and some with coffee....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Its just started Winter here in Syd, AUS is it ok to give coffee to the plants during winter time or it would be a waste of time as the plants are growing slower in the winter period an just wait for spring time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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