This post was last updated on 7/6/2020. To find the next instalment of my Avo plant growth, please click here.
Following on from my trying to grow everything post, I wanted to do an update on the avocado pip I attempted to germinate. Spoiler alert: it failed.
However, the most surprising thing happened. When we went to Trader Joe’s two weeks ago, we’d bought a bunch of fruit and put them in our new fruits basket. (That’s not the groundbreaking revelation. I know, fruit in a fruit basket, imagine.) We put bananas on the bottom rack and the avocados in the middle. As the bananas ripened, we noticed the avocados ripening at a fast rate, and when Jacky went to cut open one of the avocados 5 days later, he noticed that the seed had germinated and started to root inside the avocado.
He reported to me after that he thought he’d accidentally cut off the root when cutting open the avocado. I didn’t take photos of it, but I figured that even if the root had been cut off maybe it can re-grow, so I shoved the seed into some soil, watered it and left it outside. We’ll name it Avo1.
A day later, suspecting that it could happen again, I carefully cut open a new avocado to reveal…
11th June
This!!
You can see where the root had started growing in the half avocado. If I’d left it there longer, maybe it would have even started poking out of the avocado itself. I planted this one too. We’ll call her Avo2. I put her in this little green pot:
And because we suspected the ripening bananas was releasing… something grow-y, we placed her next to the fruits bowl.
Avo1 seemed to be doing surprisingly well outside actually…
And now I just have 2 avocados left. One of them looked like it was starting to mould on the outside, but actually this was how Avo2 looked before we cut her open and found that she had sprouted, so I was cautiously optimistic that we’d see another germinated seed. We weren’t ready to eat it yet, so left it on the fruit bowl for a couple more days.
(You don’t see any bananas in the above photo anymore because this was also the day we decided to hang both bunches up. In the first photo you can see one bunch already hung up on the side of the fruit stand.)
A few days later, we moved both avocados to the fridge to stop them from ripening further.
18th June
One of our last 2 avocados did not germinate, but when we cut open the other… Look!
This one is Avo3. I now have 3 avocado seeds growing.
Clockwise from top: Avo2, Avo3, Avo1.
above: You can see that Avo2 now has one long crack more or less the entire way along the top.
below: Avo1‘s crack has grown even further. It looks a bit dry though, and that’s probably because I haven’t been watering it enough when it was outside (we had a gnat problem so I didn’t want it infesting the avocado too). I watered it and added more soil to Avo1‘s pot because I thought it was a bit low.
above: Avo3, my newbie. I’m storing Avo3 in my office.
“Office?” I hear you say. That’s right. “But what happened to that pip you had in that jar from last month?” You ask.
This. This happened.
below: Dead (and a bit mouldy) avocado seed.
I told Jacky I was throwing it out and he actually peeled off the skin and cut it open and discovered that indeed, the seed had not germinated at all and was very dead.
At least I get my jar back.
On the bright side, I have 3 chances to actually grow an avocado tree right now. Avo1 still lives outside, Avo2 is in the living room still next to the fruit stand though there are no more bananas there, and Avo3 is on my bookshelf.
Let’s hope I can keep one of them alive? Check back for updates!
28th June
It’s been 10 days and I am so excited to share this:
Avo2 has completely cracked open! The crack has been widening day by day and now it’s at the point where you can even see the sprout growing inside. Avo2 had been growing next to the fruit bowl where the bananas had been hanging. I used up the bananas shortly after but it’s still a room that gets a lot of heat and moisture from our cooking.
Meanwhile, Avo1 who had been planted earliest and had been chilling outside also seems to be cracking a little more too. It’s now split so high that you can see it even above the soil that I’d topped it up with 10 days ago. I’m guessing that means it didn’t die from dehydration as it did look very dry when I hadn’t been watering it consistently before, but it’s looking healthier now!
This one gets probably the most indirect sunlight because it’s sitting on my balcony and does not need me to open the blinds for it to see light. At the same time, it’s probably the driest of the lot because we don’t go outside much and California isn’t really known for its humidity.
There appears to be no change in Avo3 apart from the top drying out, except I am a little concerned that there may be a little mould growing in it.
See that little reddish-brown bit on the seed that looks like it’s sunken in a little? When I was washing the seed I didn’t entirely clean off the inside from the bit of avocado that was still stuck on, so I’m not sure if that’s caused the seed to rot from the inside after I planted it.
However, this was also the seed that had grown the least inside the avocado before I took it out and planted it (Avo2 already had that long tail and Avo1 had grown a root that Jacky had accidentally cut off), so it makes sense that it hasn’t cracked open or sprouted yet.
29th June
After just one day, Avo2 has grown out of her shell!
It was really fun to walk past her throughout the day yesterday and just see the little sprout growing higher and higher each time, and now she’s finally poking out above her shell. She’s perfect <3
We’d bought a new bunch of avocados from Costco a week ago and had left them to ripen on the fruits basket as well. No bananas near them but they were by Avo2. Again we put them in the fridge once they’d ripened to a certain extent.
This morning I cut open one of the seemingly riper ones and you’ll never guess what I found…
I’m amazed! How?? It’s been 4/5 so far. At this rate I’m going to run out of planter pots/start giving them away to friends be surprised if I cut into one and it hasn’t germinated. This seed was a big one and for some reason the avocado meat stuck on to the seed very tightly. I had to scrub a bit to get it all off.
I cleaned this one off and planted her, too:
Just like we did for our celery, we grabbed another takeaway container, stabbed some holes in the bottom and filled it with soil because we’ve run out of suitable plant pots. The lid of the container acts as a saucer to catch the drainage water.
We’re putting Avo4 on our kitchen ledge, where it’ll get minimal indirect sunlight but 8+ hours of of artificial light from our dining room light. I hope she grows well too!
6th July
Avo2 is growing up so fast. I almost can’t keep up with her. The photo on the left was taken on 2nd July and the one on the right was taken just now. Her little root has grown out of the soil on the bottom and I need to transfer her into a larger container asap. Thankfully the new plant pots I ordered from Amazon should be arriving tomorrow so I’ll be able to move her in then.
Jacky says Avo2 looks sooo much like Groot that we’ve decided to rename her, “Groot“. Hang in there, Groot! You’ll be in your new plant pot soon.
Muchos love,