What would your answer be if I, Mark Roemer, were to ask you what the best treat in the coffee house was? Expensive, overpriced avocado toast? If you said that, then you should follow the tips I provide you below for growing your own avocado plant at home. With a bit of luck and a lot of skill, you can produce all the avocados you could ever want.
Nothing compares to fresh avocado with a dash of salt or made into homemade guacamole served with tortilla chips. California has a unique climate for growing avocado trees, but you can grow your own from avocado pits. You may quickly grow an avocado plant from the pits and obtain a free houseplant as a result. Here’s how to grow an avocado from seed, so save those pits.
Avocado Seeds
To grow an avocado tree, let’s begin with the avocado pits. Be careful not to cut the pit when chopping your ripe avocado. The brown skin of the seed can be preserved by washing it after removal. While cleaning the seed, you must not remove the exterior, brown seed skin. If any avocado remains are still sticking to the seed, give it a quick rinse in water. Before beginning, ensure the pit is clean and completely dry with a paper towel. Now you are one step closer to all the avocado you can eat.
The Setup
The avocado pit’s top and bottom should be noted first. As the avocado sprout grows from the top, which is more pointed and slightly elliptical, it must face upward. To grow an avocado from a seed, you must complete this stage.
The toothpick method is the most straightforward approach to establishing an avocado tree. To begin, pierce the seed with a toothpick at a slight downward angle, but without going through it. Keep the pit upright and insert two to three more toothpicks into the opposite edges. Keep them evenly spaced. We are building an avocado scaffolding if you will. Pick up a water jar and fill it almost to the brim with water. Hang the avocado seed from the jar’s rim. The non-pointy side of the pit’s bottom half should be submerged in the water. Leave the container uncapped to expose the seed and provide room for the sprouting seed.
Daily Care Is Essential
Place your avocado seeds container on a sunny windowsill that receives only filtered light. Therefore, the seed is not exposed to the sun directly. Avocados adore the sun, but seeds don’t!
You should observe roots and a tiny sprout within six weeks of planting the seed. More roots will develop from the small taproot that serves as the primary root. If no roots are observed in eight weeks, discard the seed and try again. This is why it’s crucial to plant multiple avocado trees at once. They might not begin to sprout or produce fruit.
Every few days, top off the jar’s water, ensuring that the avocado seed is submerged in at least one inch of water. Dump the jar and replace the water once a week to prevent fungus growth. When changing the water, you will occasionally want to give it a deep soak. Utilizing a paper towel, dry the seed.
Growing avocados is fun as long as you keep an eye on them. Put it somewhere in the house where you won’t forget it. To encourage greater bushiness, trim it back to three inches tall when it reaches seven inches.
Planting Method
It’s time to start considering shifting your avocado pits to potting soil now that you have a few sprouted avocado seeds ready to grow into avocado trees. The toothpick method is only used to get the process started.
When you look at your sapling, you may notice it fills the jar or cup with roots. This is how you know it is time to transplant to a larger home. Take the avocado seed out of the jar, then bury half of it in the soil (similar to its jar setup). Remember to take the toothpicks out. Don’t fill the container with anything else but dirt, not even pebbles.
Water the avocado seed until water begins to emerge from the pot’s bottom. Maintain the soil’s moisture by using your fingers to check it every few days (dry up to the first knuckle). Make sure there isn’t any water in the saucer. You may be overwatering if the leaves start to turn yellow. Your seed has now grown into a legitimate plant!
Plant Care
To prevent stress on young avocado plants, continuous and consistent watering is essential. To avoid root rot, drill some holes or find a pot that already has drainage slots.
Of course, you might also have to deal with pests if you want to raise avocado plants. Those annoying aphids (tiny bugs clinging to the leaves) can be fought using neem oil. Spray the leaves with neem oil and water if you spot them (pre-mixed). Repeat twice weekly until they are gone.
Cut the top two sets of leaves every time the plant grows six to seven inches. To promote beautiful fruits (hopefully! ), cutting them will stimulate branching and a bushier appearance. Keep the young tree in some shade or indirect light.
It’s crucial to fertilize with a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer now that your avocado seeds have grown into trees throughout the summer (look for the numbers 7-4-2). Because they don’t require much care, simply follow the directions for seedlings. While it’s still small, once a month is more than enough.
Cold Weather
It is crucial to winter newborn avocado plants in all, save warm Florida and Southern California, where the heat is constant year-round. In those places, avocado trees thrive with great success. Keep avocado trees growing in colder climates in a container by immediately bringing them indoors before it gets below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. If additional lighting is required because the plant can lose leaves, get a grow lamp.
Will It Bear Fruit?
It varies! Not all of them behave or give fruit the same way as most fruit trees do. Some may produce fruit after only a few years or after being mature for over 15 years, while others do not.
An avocado plant raised from seed can bear fruit anywhere from five to fifteen years after planting. When mature, an avocado tree can reach a height of 35 feet, making it challenging to keep indoors.
Once the temperature drops outside of California, the tree may perish from the cold and stop producing fruit. Your avocado fruit won’t get as big as the one in the grocery store if you grow one from seed. Commercial avocados are cultivated under specific conditions and on grafted branches to produce larger fruit.
Grow, Grow, Grow!
I, Mark Roemer, know that although avocado trees flourish well outdoors in the country’s warmer regions (think Miami and California), you can bring them indoors in winter by simply keeping them in a container. Regular watering will help your avocado trees develop into gorgeous, lush trees that can be grown in full sunlight. If you’re lucky, growing a plant from avocado seeds will produce excellent fruit, so enjoy your organically grown avocado!