If you’re anything like me you love a creamy avocado for breakfast. Whether its smashed on a bagel alongside some poached eggs, on even used for dinner on a homemade burger! Avocados have become a popular fruit in the past century raising questions to how people can grow them inside their own household.
Unfortunately, these plants can take up to a minimum of 5 years to start producing fruit, which even then, might not happen. However, the good news is that the process is very simple, with a few toothpicks (or even a chopstick snapped into three parts), a glass of water, a single brown avocado pit and most importantly some TLC, you can learn to successfully grow an avocado tree inside without any hassle.
This can be a great project for anyone, whether it’s to act as a timestamp for a certain event, a lesson to teach kids patience or even a goal, something to care for helps to care for yourself.
Materials: What you will need to start!
1) Avocado Seed (we recommend choosing one from a good healthy avocado)
2) 3 Toothpicks (or even small cocktail sticks etc.)
3) Drinking Glass
Materials: Needed later on down the line
4) Large pot with drainage holes and a saucer
5) Potting soil (preferably with a perlite mix)
6) Trowel (or even a big spoon or ladle!)
Lets Get Started
Step 1: Spoon out an avocado pit and wash off any residue. Soak the pit in water for around 5 minutes before peeling off the outer layer (the soaking in water will make the pealing easier!)
Step 2: Insert 3 toothpicks about halfway up the pointer side of the pit and suspend in a drinking glass. Fill the glass with enough water to submerge half of the pit.
Step 3: Place the glass in a warm environment, this can either be on a window seal in the kitchen or conservatory etc. Advice is to place out of direct sunlight, however for the first few months direct sunlight really helped my pit to sprout and start off! Change the water every week.
Step 4: Roots will begin to appear first but be patient! This can take anywhere between 2 weeks and 2 months (sometimes they might be a little shy!) After roots have appeared and the spout has begun to shoot up, it is sometimes advised to cut back the plant around 3 inches to encourage growth. This is completely up to you (I didn’t have the heart to cut it back!).
Step 5: Once the plant has long roots, a tall stem with leaves and appears to be flourishing, place the plant in a large pot filled with preferably a soil and perlite mix. Water well once through (it’s used to being submerged in water!) and allow for any drainage. Water weekly to start then every other week subsequently.
Patience, watch this little seed grow and grow into a fully-fledged tree. It may be the best part of 10 years before fruit actually produces so remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint!
Maintenance & Care
Place the pot in a sunny spot indoors and water lightly. Moist but not damp soil is key! If the leaves start to become yellow and wilted, this is a sign of overwatering! If they become brown and crispy at the tips, this is a sign of too much direct sunlight, place them somewhere a little further away!
Growing an Avocado Tree Outdoors
If you’ve now reached this stage then wow, that is impressive. Your patience, care and determination has finally paid off and you should be very proud of yourself, we definitely are!
Remember, Avocados are tropical plants, so they need heat. In the UK we are not blessed with such consistent temperatures, however it can still be done! Pot this plant in rich, well-drained soil in a large space with access to plenty of sunlight and no competition from other plants. It is advised to plant this at the start of summer, this way your plant has the best chances of survival and optimum temperatures to carry it through those winter months. It is also an option to bring the plant inside during winter for the first few years, which if you have the room great! But if not, don’t worry, just water less and keep a close-eye on them.
These trees can reach upwards of 80 feet tall and 20 feet wide if all the conditions are perfect! Furthermore, these trees have shallow roots, so mulch, topsoil with a good layer of bark will help retain this moisture and sturdiness. Water around 3 times per week whilst letting the soil fully dry out before the next watering.
No Fruit? No Problem
Whilst this journey may have been a long and tiring one, and you are increasingly growing impatient at the lack of fruit, please note that these trees typically take 5-10 years before any sign of fruit. Fruit can still occur indoors; however, it will obviously be smaller and there is a lesser chance.
Whilst You Wait
Please check out our other gardening and household projects which you can achieve in the meantime, the more projects and shorter goalposts you have, the quicker the main ones will come! Thank you so very much for reading this post, please leave any helpful tips and comments in the section below and as always, happy planting!