Grow an Avocado tree!

After you are finished making guacamole with your avocado, save the pit so you can grow your own avocado tree. It’s easy and it will grow HUGE! 1 After you remove the pit from the avocado carefully (without cutting it), wash off all the avocado fruit. Be careful not to remove the brown skin on the pit – that is the seed cover. Avocado pits have a ‘bottom’ (from where the roots will grow), and a ‘top’ (from which the sprout will grow). The slightly pointier end is the top, and the flat end is the bottom. In order to get your pit to sprout, you will need to place the bottom root end in water. 2 Push three or four toothpicks into your avocado pit about a 1/3 of the way from the bottom (large end of the pit). 3 Suspend the avocado over a glass (the toothpicks will hold it up). The pit should be in 1/2 inch or so of water. Keep the level constant by adding water as needed. DON’T change the water too often. 4 Set it on a sunny windowsill. BE PATIENT! It can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks, and up to at least 8 weeks to get a sprout. Here is what will happen:

• The top of the avocado pit

will dry out and form a crack, and the outer brown seed skin will come off.

• The crack will extend all

the way to the bottom of the avocado pit, and through the crack at the bottom, a tiny root will begin to appear.

• A stem will start to grow

from the top of the pit.There may be more than one stem and these should always be left alone. When the stem reaches 6 inches, cut it back to 3 inches; this will make a bushy, leafy plant. 5 You can plant your tree in soil after it’s about 6 inches tall. Remove or break toothpicks off before planting. The upper portion of the seed must be exposed to allow new stems to grow so don’t bury it all the way under the ground. The avocado should be potted in a large clay pot in a light sandy soil mixture. Sometimes avocado plants will begin growing fruit after they’re 3 or 4 years old, others take 15+ years to grow fruit, and some never do. But it’s fun to grow it anyway!