The Fruit of Vanilla - The Vanilla Bean

The first thing we would like you to know while potting and future cutting of your vanilla plants is that the milky sap is an irritant to skin so please handle it appropriately.

Your plants are sent bare root ready to pot up. Sending bare root save you in the cost of shipping because we are not shipping you the potting soil that you are already using for some house plants. There are times that your piece may not seem to have roots on it. Do not be concerned about that, they are ready to grow. Remove the bottom leaf or two for potting if they have not been removed already. We recommend that you use a large pot such as a 1-gallon or more. We started our cutting about 6 years ago in 18” ceramic pot with a single hole in the bottom. Place the cutting into the soil far enough that the point of the removed leaves is below the soil line.

MIX: We use about 1/4 potting soil, 1/4 coarse sand, 1/2 bark chips. One some we have used “Orchid Bark” and some we have used pine bark and others cypress much so you should be OK with all.

Growth: Make sure when you Vanilla grows it has a place to go. Ours we allow to grow all under our benches and up the backside of the greenhouse. Keep in mind that Vanilla likes warm weather and sun! If you are farther north then Florida you will want to consider adding light for a few additional hours a day to aid in blooming.

The Pollination

We found it most helpful to remove the lip from the flower to pollinate the flowers. It is a little different and with the lip gone it makes it much easier to access.


3-13-2004 Vanilla planifolia	Flower 4-09-2004
.You take the pollen out from the yellow area and place it in the nectar that is shown above in blue. It is in the top of the column right behind a flap that is located between the two sections of the flower. In the future I will try to cut a flower in half to make a better image for you to see.
	5-05-2004 Vanilla planifolia

Vanilla planifolia 5-15-2004

The two images above are closer images of the plant above with my hand to give a perspective of the size of these fruit (beans, pods) already!

Vanilla planifolia 6-3-2004 The best easy description I can give you for the size these things are getting is a thin banana. Most orchid fruit is more like the shape of a piece of okra. It is interesting to see how these are going. It will be even more interesting when I harvest them and see how they do.

Today January 29, 2005 the fruit was finally ripe and picked. The longest one is 9 inches.	The curing process begins with boiling.

The color begins to change and they become pliable.	When ready they have changed color and are rather soft.

Above is the plastic container we used for this first attempt with a cloth diaper (clean of course). We will see how it goes.

We'll add more later!

Happy Growing,

Kevin Johnson