This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Overwintering Tea, Coffee and Other Tender Edible Perennials
dogwooddays
Posts: 258
in Fruit & veg
I bought a tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and a coffee plant (Coffea arabica) earlier this year. I’m hoping, in time, to be able to produce infinitesimally small amounts of low quality hot beverages with which to underwhelm my friends and family. In the meantime, the coffee needs to come in for the winter and I’ll probably bring the camellia in too...
https://dogwooddays.net/2016/10/29/overwintering-tea-coffee-and-other-tender-edible-perennials/
I'd love to know if anyone else is growing tea or coffee and, if so, how it's going. And has anyone been successful overwintering cucamelons? As I've written on the blog, they are my nemesis and I'd love some advice on how to get them through the winter successfully. Thanks 
0
Posts
I haven't tried growing tea and coffee, but cucamelons you treat them like cucumbers.
Have you managed to overwinter them? if so, how please?
Tea likes it cool, damp, acid soil, dappled shade and shelter from cold winds and fairly steady temperatures, can take cold but doesn't like fluctuations. All this according to a tea grower in Scotland - just look up Scottish tea plantation
I can match some of those conditions and had been toying with the notion myself, as ordinary camellias do ok here.Well done you for trying. Are you going to grow cotton next
?
Last edited: 30 October 2016 12:06:59
Try following weeteaplantation.com for advice on the same.
Thousands of tea plants are today thriving in Scotland's natural environment
but that first winter is always key for such young plants. Once they're established then the right variety of plant can easily deal the cold for long periods- they do need to be well sheltered from the winds however. The first garden was started in 2010 but there are +15 nowadays and there's plenty of information online covering their successes; http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/lifestyle/cls_features/14767345.For_all_the_tea_in_Scotland/
What an interesting post, i thought it was going to be a wind up at first....i'm new to this site...;)
Interesting to read about your experience with cucamelons dogwood. This has been my 2nd year of growing them. I wasn't aware they were perennial when I grew the first lot, and only spotted the tubers when I tipped them out of their pots and into the compost bin
This year I have chopped them right back and left in the pots in a cold greenhouse, under cover of a propagator lid. Trying to keep them dry and frost free.
This seems to have been unsuccessful for you. Do you think it was cold that caused them to rot?
Hello Loana, always nice to see a new face on the forum
Thank you kitty 2, everyone is so friendly and helpful
off to clear up mountains of leaves, we have 7 oak trees in our back garden....don't know if its just me, but there seems to be way more leaves this year and few acorns?