How to: Grow Avocado Trees from Pit!

How to: Grow Avocado Trees from Pit!

     Alright so today I'm going to explain how to grow your own Avocado Tree from an Avocado pit! Here are a list of things you will need.

- Avocado Pit (Obviously)

- Mason Jar

- Toothpicks (4)

     Okay, so now that you have your supplies the first thing you're going to do is make sure not to damage the pit of the Avocado when cutting it open. Once you have the pit removed, carefully clean the fruit off of the pit under the tap. 

     The next thing your going to do is dry the pit off with a piece of paper towel. After you dry your pit off carefully insert the four toothpicks into the middle sides of the pit, you'll only need to put very little of the toothpick into the Avocado. So now you have four toothpicks in your avocado, one on each side. 

     The next step is to fill your mason jar with luke warm water and place the Avocado pit on top so the bottom half of the pit (The larger, rouder side) is submerged in the water and the pointed side is above the water. Make sure you place your Avocado pit in a nice sunny window where it's warm. You will have to top off the water in the jar everyday and every second day you're going to want to completely change the water. If you continue doing this for 3-4 weeks you will notice the top of the pit start to dry up and peel away. Shortly after your pit will start cracking down the side and you will finally have your tap root come out of the bottom of the pit. 

     Once your tap root is out, it will start growing fairly quickly until around 1-2 weeks later you will see the budding plant emerge from the top of the pit. Now, a lot of people find Avocado's to be very slow growing plants, but in my experience they are very quick. Within 1 week after the actual sprout came up from the top of the pit, the plant reached roughly about 3 inches tall. This is when you are going to want to plant the pit into a pot. I like to use the terracotta pots myself. So take you're pot, fill it up with soil to about 3/4's of the pot is full and make a nice long hole so you can easily fit the tap root and the bottom half of the pit in the soil. Keep the top part of the pit outside the soil with the rest of the plant. Make sure to never let your soil go dry, but remember never to over water! Over watering can be a lot more harmful to the plant than under watering. Luckily with Avocado Tree's they let you know how they are. If your leaves start to go brown, then you are over watering it. Let it dry out for a few days and it should be okay. If your leaves start to go yellow it means that you are not watering the plant enough. 

     So that's all you need to know about the basics of growing an Avocado Tree from pit! If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I will reply back to you!

     I think the next post will be an update on the many trees I have planted as well as a "How to" for citrus fruits!

-Mathew