How To: Grow an Avocado Tree

With the recent onslaught of hot weather, we've been scarfing the guacamole and thought it a shame to just chuck the avocado pits. We grabbed a couple of our trusty Spega yogurt glasses and did our best to recall the glory days of elementary school science class. Jump below for a refresher on how to turn your seed in to a little tree....

Unfortunately, according to the website, it's pretty rare for a tree grown from a seed to bear edible fruit, but we happen to think avocado trees are mighty pretty. Either way, sure makes for a fun summer project.

Straight from the official avocado website:

1. Wash the seed. Using three toothpicks, suspend it broad end down over a water-filled glass to cover about an inch of the seed.

2. Put it in a warm place out of direct sunlight and replenish water as needed. You should see roots and stem sprout in about two to six weeks.

3. When the stem is six to seven inches long, cut it back to about three inches.

4. When the roots are thick and the stem has leafed out again, plant it in a rich humus soil in a 10-1/2" diameter pot, leaving the seed half exposed.

5. Give it frequent, light waterings with an occasional deep soak. Generally, the soil should be moist but not saturated. Yellowing leaves are a sign of over-watering; let the plant dry out for a few days.

6. The more sunlight, the better.

7. If leaves turn brown and fry at the tips, too much salt has accumulated in the soil. Let water run freely into the pot and drain for several minutes.

8. When the stem is 12 inches high, cut it back to 6 inches to encourage the growth of new shoots.

9. Don't expect your house plant to bear fruit. Although this does occur occasionally, it usually requires grafting. A plant grown from seed will take anywhere from five to 13 years to flower and bear fruit. Fruit on trees grown from seeds are seldom good to eat.

Comments (24)

If you don't cut it back at all as it suggested a few times above it will grow straight up in this really cool tall thin way - minimilist plant

I was kind of excited until reading #9.
:(

Yeah, I was excited until reading #9 too. How did Mother Nature produce yummy avocados from seed before humans came along and started grafting plants? :)

I was laughing until I read #9 and thought they do realize this method will not bear fruit because even in the real conditions its hard. My family had avocado orchrids and there were some good years and some really bad ones.

This reminds me of when I lived in San Francisco.

My wife and I grew an avocado plant from a pit when family was visiting.

I don't know what it was about that spindly plant but we loved it.

We loved it so much that when we moved back to Chicago we took it with us. In our car (a beat-up Ford Aspire packed to the ceiling). Across country. In January. I remember running from the parked car on the CA/NV border (Ely?) when the temperature was something like 10 into the Hotel Nevada and it slept with us in the Jimmy Stewart room. Then, we ran it into some Holiday Inn on the CO/KS border. It had its own little floorspace behind the passenger seat on the floor.

Then, we moved into our apartment in Chicago and it got stolen off our back porch when we put it out in the spring. There were other plants, barbecues, pieces of sculpture. They took the avocado plant.

My husband and I planted a pit last summer and now have an avocado tree about 2ft. high. Granted the Cleveland winter had our apartment a bit chilly for Emilio's liking (we named him :-)), but now that it's warming up around here, he's growing all sorts of leaves!

I grew a beautiful one many years ago but it outgrew our house so I gave it to my niece - it is huge - at least 8 feet tall and very wide. I like to visit it. It must be at least 20 years old.

i do seriously wonder how the little old avocado seed made it prior to human manipulation. i bet it was easier to grow before us...
anyway - art, i love your story. sorry the stole the avocado but still a strange cute story nontheless.

jackie_22 wrote:
> I was kind of excited until reading #9.
> :(

No joke.

I live off of avocados. I eat something with avocado pretty much every day (sometime lunch and dinner). I'm an avocado junkie.

But they are so finicky! Seems like they are not ripe for days, then they are ready for eating for like 12 minutes, and on the 13th minute, they turn to brown mush inside!

Is there an avocado season?

I was getting great avocados regularly, earlier in the year. But the past month or so, it has been difficult. Or had I just been getting lucky? (or unlucky lately?)

This reminds me of my childhood. My parents always let us grow them. We had one all from my elementary school all through high school. It was my favorite plant of all time. My mom got rid of it when I moved away. It made me sad to think of it tossed out like that.

We have a fully grown tree... it's about 4-5 stories high, and 23 years old.

Who knew there was an "official" avocado website?

I suppose my neighbors must have bought a couple of grafted avocado trees, but they have 2 huge fully grown, avocado bearing, trees on their property that half grow into our property, which means: FREE AVOCADOS. They're not the best avocados I've ever had but they're huge, and uhmm... free.

Before humans, avocados grew by being around for a long time and going through many growing cycles. When we say it isn't going to bear edible fruit, that probably means in any reasonable amount of time.

I actually did this whole process when I was in 3rd or 4th grade with my family. I'm now going onto my second year of college, so about 10 years later, and my avocado tree has not only survived, it has given us more avocados then we could ever handle! The last time it had fruit we had to give them away in bundles, I'm not even exaggerating. I don't really remember the process we used but most likely it was exactly like you described. I just remember it taking a very long time to grow in a pot and then we moved to a new house so we actually planted it there in our front yard when it was probably only 2 or 3 ft tall. Now it is taller then our house. I love that tree and the avocados are delicious too!

kimberlymj, where are you located? something tells me CA?

friend of my mum's has an avocado tree it took a long time to grow but eventually it bore fruit and they are quite edible! She's given avocado's to my family and they are HUGE and delicious. we have one we've been growing for the past mmm close to 4 years and its close to 3 ft.

the toothpick method NEVER worked for me, the seeds just dried out or got mouldy.
so i thought: what does mother nature do? definitely she isn't threatening the pits with toothpicks??

so i put two avocado pits in the pot of my loyal fern (whose name is Frank btw). broad end in the soil, the tip above the soil. instant success. avocado plants peeking out from under the fern after some time. no extra care necessary.

since then i've grown about 24 plants, only a handful of pits didn't start growing and i've been handing out avocado trees to friends and family because i don't have enough space.

FYI -- The reason why some of the outside trees bear fruit is because of cross-pollination. You need male and female trees. That's what happens in grafting. You're attached a male part to a female tree so it will pollinate itself.

Mooncalf is wrong. Grafting is a cloning strategy that allows you to produce copies of a plant that will reliably develop in the same way the parent did. Growing from seed allows significant variation.

Grafting is totally unrelated to flowering and pollination. Generally, it is thought that avocado's are unable to self-pollinate which is why european honey bees are used to pollinate grafted avocados in commercial avocado growing.

"Fruit on trees grown from seeds are seldom good to eat."

are there trees that don't grow from seeds?

As a commercial grower every tree needs to produce. If you grow from seed, it's a lottery. So most fruit trees and as far as I know, all commercial avocado trees, are grown from cuttings grafted onto root stock. So, yes, there are a lot of trees that weren't grown from seeds.

-------------
"Fruit on trees grown from seeds are seldom good to eat."
are there trees that don't grow from seeds?

my daughter and i decided to give this a try about 6 weeks ago, and voila, today we have a 4 inch stem with baby leaves! we couldn't be prouder.

on a yucky note, we tried with two seeds, and the second became covered in mold. we had to discard it. was kind of stinky, too.

thanks for the fun idea, shayna!

What came first, the avocado or the seed? :)