Saturday, August 24, 2013

Holy (Guaca)mole!

Back on June 28th, my garden helper was here and one of the projects that day was to shovel all the finished/near-finished compost into either storage bins or the new compost pile.

Those who have read along knew that I'd been enjoying a lot of avocados that Spring and lots of those large pits ended up in the compost.

We found several in the compost that had sprouted.  Hey.  Cool.

I took one that had split open with a short rootlet and, for a lark, planted it in a small pot in front of the Queen of the Prairie along the brick wall.

I really just forgot about it.  We got good rain in July so I didn't do anything to it.

The rains dried up in August so now and then I'd look in, splash some water into the pot, then move on to fill the little birdbath.

Imagine my surprise on Aug 16th when I looked in - and something looked back!

An avocado?  Or had some squirrel buried a pignut hickory in there when I wasn't looking?

I quickly covered it, nonetheless with one of my MANY colorful wire mesh baskets to protect it from said squirrels.

Now, 8 days later, you can see leaves filling in.  Also you can see there is more than 1 stem.  (There's a little one at the soil line.)

And, yep, research shows it IS an avocado sprout!

Smooth-sided pot
Oh what fun.  I'm going to have to put this into a different shaped pot, and right quick.  That shaped pot with a rolled inward lip makes it near impossible to safely transplant out of there.  I'll put the seedling into a smooth-sided pot so it will be easier to pot up in the future.

Hopefully, I'll have an interesting houseplant to keep me company this winter.  And, who knows.

In 20 years or so I might get some avocados.  *heh*


4 comments:

  1. We have three avocado trees which I've grown from pits. Dunno if they will ever provide us with any fruit, but it's worth a try :)

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  2. This will teach you patience!

    Be sure to post pictures of it when it is leafed out nicely; I have never seen an avocado tree.

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  3. This will be a fun "experiment". If anything, you'll get a nice plant out of it.

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  4. I don't expect anything out of this except a houseplant that goes outside in summer. I've read that pit-grown avo's take a couple decades to bloom and those are grown in sub- and tropical climes. Still, this will be fun. (I'm so easily entertained...*heh*)

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