Plantin’ Time
The next phase in the coffee saga is in place. Last week, we spent five days on the mountain planting thirty thousand (30,000) coffee seeds. That is enough coffee to plant over two hundred acres of coffee trees. Do we have that much ground available right now? NO! What we do have is a plan that could work, and I will explain it later.
The week before getting to the mountain, we had made arrangements for two very important items which we needed for this whole operation to succeed. We needed (wanted) a tou-la-ji, a small tractor, to help us to break up the ground and get it worked up. Then, we absolutely had to have water to the planting sight. Both proved to be harder to get than we had been promised.
The first picture shows the raw ground for the nursery. The land is located inside the village proper and is located on a lot bordering the river. It has been vacant with no house or other buildings on it. The owner was quite offended by the neighbors throwing trash on his land and otherwise “using” it without his permission so as a condition of us getting the land, we had to build a fence around it. Another costly project, but it had to be done. The fence was made out of bamboo and was about seven feet tall. It is pretty substantial and should keep the pigs and chickens out, but three or four boys took some of the bamboo down and came into the land one day while we were working. They knew all about fences.
As far as we could tell, the land had never been broken up or planted. It could not have been any harder. We cut down all of the brush and got ready for the tractor to do its thing. We cleared a twenty foot by fifty foot (20’ X 50’) piece of ground. Soon after that was when we found out that said tractor was not going to be helping us. Wow, what now? Well, now involved all of us getting a hoe and to start swinging.
A Chinese hoe is a wonderful thing (in the hands of an experienced farmer). This whole country has been built with a hoe, and there are very few things that you can’t do with one. Well, in my hands it doesn’t quite function so efficiently. It took us two full days of HARD work to get the land ready. We had to spade it up and then go over it three more times just to make it plantable. Did I mention all of the rocks? We were all very tired every day after work.
While all of this was being done, we were also trying to get the village plumber to run the water lines to the land. Plumber is not quite a real or appropriate title for him. He is the only guy in the whole village who is allowed to hook up water lines. He, of course, was in no hurry to act on our request. We started trying to get him to come out on Monday and it was Thursday before he showed up. We were in a real pickle by that time. We had to have water! Since it hadn’t rained for nearly five months and isn’t supposed to rain for at least another month, there was no way that we could plant seeds in that super dry soil.
After the plumber arrived on Thursday, we built a relatively simple irrigation system for the seed bed. On paper, it looked really nice, and even turned out to be quite a good looking way to get water to the seeds. The only problem was that there was not nearly enough water pressure to make it work. As an interim solution, we used a watering can to wet the seed beds. Even that took too much time so, finally, one of the farmers who had been watching this whole evolution took the spout off of the watering can and put it on the end of the water hose that we had purchased. What an amazing idea! Lots of water delivered in the right amount in the right place. Necessity being the mother of invention, we finally had water to the seedbed. How many college degrees does it take to water a Chinese seedbed? We all laughed at that idea.
Planting coffee seeds in the manner prescribed by “the book” is a very laborious process. A friend and I did ONE seed bed in two and a half hours. We planted almost three thousand seeds in that bed alone. This was going to take a very long time and we had to be done that day. What to do? The villagers plant tea seeds by broadcasting them on the seedbed and rolling or pressing them into the soil. After that, they cover them with another layer of soil and water them in. Since we had eleven more seedbeds to plant, we decided to follow that method. That was not the end of the problem though. A coffee seed should be planted flat-side down. Guess what. After scattering the seeds, we noticed that nearly ninety per cent of them were flat –side UP! We only had one choice. Start turning them over. By this time, we were way behind schedule. A few villagers showed up and gave us a hand which helped out a whole lot! We offered to feed them that night as payment.
By the end of the day, we had the seed beds planted, the seeds rolled into the soil and covered with a nice layer of soil and a little sawdust for mulch. It wasn’t all by the book, but it should work. Normally, coffee seeds take almost 60 days to germinate and come up. At that time they should be transplanted into their own plastic bag (4”x10”) where they will grow for nearly a year and then be transplanted into the field.
We do not have the manpower to fill thirty thousand bags with soil. That is where the plan comes in. We are going to offer the seedlings and a bag for each at a very low price to the villagers if they will agree to plant them in their fields. We have been contacted by people in other villages about growing coffee so that is quite an encouragement. This really needs a lot of pr-ing so if you could help with that we would be grateful. When the villagers buy rubber tree seedlings, they routinely pay up to ten times more than what we will ask for the coffee seedlings. It is not inconceivable that they would buy our seedlings. PR that HE would lead them to buy them.
Since a new coffee seedling cannot withstand full sunlight, we are going back this week to build a sunscreen over the entire 20’X50’ seedbed. We will post pictures of that when we get back. Thanks for all of your prs for our efforts. They are not in vain. They are priceless!!
Being Hands and Feet
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