Authored by Kate Beswick in Gardening
Published on 08-03-2009
Avocados are not only delicious in your favorite salad or guacamole, they’re also extremely nutritious! Avocados have a dark, shiny green skin with a smooth and oily light green flesh. In the center of every avocado is the large, smooth and flesh-colored seed. Avocado seeds are perfect for planting and it’s simple too. Planting an avocado tree only takes a few very simple steps. And although it may take a few years before you can reap the fruits of your labor, you’ll also have tons of fun watching y our own avocado tree grow from seed!
The first step of growing an avocado from seed is perhaps the most fun because you get to eat the avocado! Peel the avocado and slice away all the flesh, making sure not to cut the seed when you are removing it. Once you’ve eaten the yummy avocado, rinse the seed carefully so you can remove any remnants of the avocado.
After you have carefully eaten the avocado and rinsed the seed carefully, you’ll need to place a small amount of water into the bottom of a cup. This is the cup that will hold the seed while it is germinating. Do not place the entire seed into the cup of water. Avocado seeds will not grow if they are completely immersed in water but they do need to be a bit moist. To make sure that you can still provide your seed with the water it needs without immersing it fully, place three toothpicks into the seed.
Once you have the toothpicks placed gently into the seed, place the seed into the cup of water so that the toothpicks lay against the top of the cup. This will prevent your avocado seed into from dropping into the water, but will still hold it up so that the bottom of the seed can receive the water it needs. When you are placing the seed into the cup of water, it’s important that you make sure that the wider side is pointed down into the water. Now you just have to wait until the seed begins to germinate!
As you are waiting for the seed to begin sprouting, you will need to change the water in the cup regularly. Dirty water will quickly become depleted of oxygen and no seed will be able to grow in water that doesn’t supply it with oxygen. The seed will first start to sprout at the bottom but it won’t be long before you start to see shoots coming out of the top of it too! Once you’ve seen this happen, it’s time to transfer your seed from the cup to the pot.
To prepare your pot to receive the seed, fill it up with potting soil, which is rich in nutrients. Even though you may be tempted to completely bury your avocado seed, it will do much better if you only plant it halfway underground. This will allow it to still receive plenty of air and sunshine. Also be sure to place your avocado plant in a spot that has lots of sun so it will flourish. It may take a few more years before you can harvest it but there’s nothing better than eating a fresh and ripe avocado from your very own yard!
