As you might know from my April blog post “Fun Facts About Avocados” I absolutely love avocados! They’re delicious, nutritious and a great snack. Hence, it was only natural that my fiancé and I started growing our own avocado plants.
It’s very simple to grow your own! There’re tons of tutorials on the web on how to get it started. Here’s a few links if you’d like to try for yourself:
How to Grow an Avocado Tree: Guac 'n' Roll from HGTV:
www.hgtvgardens.com/guac-n-roll-grow-an-avocado-tree
HOW TO: Grow an Avocado Tree from an Avocado Pit from Inhabitat:
inhabitat.com/how-to-grow-an-avocado-tree-from-an-avocado-pit/
Growing Avocado Plants From Seed from Instructables:
www.instructables.com/id/Growing-Avocado-Plants-From-Seed/
Essentially, you use toothpicks to suspend the bottom half of the pit under water, while the top half is exposed to absorb sunlight. It loves sunlight! It’s best grown on a sun-lit window sill or in front of a patio door. Once and awhile the water needs to be changed too. Eventually when it’s ready it can be transferred to soil. It’s an easy process, but it takes a lot of patience with some trial and error if it’s your first time. Any water container will do so long as it’s big enough to fit the pit with some room at the bottom; gradually change the container to a larger one according to plant’s size and its roots. We’ve used pop cans, beer cans and wine cartons.
We began to grow them back in January. In total, I’d say we tried growing around 12-15 pits since then. A lot of them were not successful and didn’t grow at all. The first one that grew a root, my fiancé accidentally killed; he removed the sprout from the pit, thinking it was having a hard time coming out of the pit. We later realized that the sprout needed the pit for nourishment. Also the plant splits the pit in half and come out on its own.
Out of them all and after almost 6 months we now have two that are growing quite well and another two that have potential, as you can see from the photo below.
My four avocado plants lined up in front of my patio door
The biggest one potted in soil (#1) is the most mature plant. It started making great progress back in February. Here are some dated photos of its progress from when it first sprouted from the top:
The one in the upcycled wine carton (#2) is doing quite well! As you can see it’s starting to grow a nice, long root. Eventually when it’s long enough the roots will start to branch out and hopefully a sprout will come out from the top. You can see the tiny plant inside the pit.
The next pit (#3) to the left of the carton has a lot of potential! It’s already split the pit in half and started to grow a very small root. Come on, little guy! You can do it!
I have hopes for last pit (#4). It looked like it tried to come out, but failed. Strange that it looks like it has a green sprout in the middle but no roots. I have trimmed the bottom in hopes of helping the root grow.
Growing the avocado plant is a lot of fun! It’s so gratifying to watch them grow and come to life with just some toothpicks and water. My fiancé hopes that one day the biggest one will bear fruit, but to me it doesn’t matter if we get fruit from it or not. It’s such a pretty plant! I’d be happy just to watch them grow!
I will keep documenting their progress with photos. I hope they do well! I might post another blog later on when the largest plant is even bigger.
Vanessa Williams
July 20, 2017 at 6:57 PM
Hi! I wanted to ask a question... I am growing an avocado tree from the seed and my taproot is getting longer and longer. But I noticed there is a bunch of white stuff surrounding the taproot that's growing from the middle of the seed. Is this something I should be worried about?