What I’ve learned so far about starting avocados from seed: Stab with toothpicks, stick in water, & love. Just like it happens in nature… 

This is Wilbur. He’s my little bacon avocado. I’m excited that he’s inspired some friends to make their own avocado babies. And other friends across the country literally got their avocado seeds the same day I posted his first picture, with the intention to plant their own trees, before even seeing him! Avocados are great and they’re making our minds think alike! Creepy…

Thought I’d share what I’ve learned so far on how to grow your own avocado trees from seed.

I watched two videos on Youtube first. This one from Mitchell Boyle, which was really helpful because it explains not only what to do, but it shows how they start out and what to expect them to look like as they age… And he seems like such a nice Canadian.

What to do

1) WASH Wash off the pit with a washcloth and water so that the bits of avocado don’t make it moldy later.

2) TOOTHPICK Put three toothpicks into the pit, coming out of the pit in an upward angle so the pit sits in the glass deeper, closer to the water.

3) WATER Place the pit on the top of a glass jar and fill the glass with water to cover 1/3 or 1/2 of the pit. Keep adding water as the weeks go by to maintain that same water height. If the water gets cloudy, change it.

4) WARMTH Keep the avocados near light and in a warm place. They don’t like being cold.

5) I also like to give them a little label saying:

• the breed of avocado (There are so many! Who knew?! Hass, Bacon, Fuerte, Zutano… More on this later)
• the date you planted her/him/herim
• if they’re organic
• where they’re from

Then I watched this other video from PiranhaJaw22.

He really taught the value of patience. He shows two seeds, planted at the same time, in the same way, and it’s three months later and one is a foot tall and the other hasn’t even formed a root yet. They all can take different amounts of time to sprout. Same goes for the photo above, all three of my seeds are planted within 2 days of each other. But Wilbur is so tall and his brothers are simply enjoying the peacefulness of their elongated bath. Or, they are pissed that I stabbed them. Maybe both.

What to expect

1) It takes between 1-3 months for activity to happen

2) First the seed will crack open, this is so there is room for the root and stem to emerge. Look inside- it looks like a bean!

3) Root comes out first

4) Stem reaches up later

5) If nothing is happening, it helps to gently rub off the brown skin at the base of the seed to help the root poke through

The more the merrier

Make a few trees cause they don’t have babies (avocados) unless they can have sex with other trees! Ha! We have a huge 100 year old avocado tree in the back yard and he/she is sick. So I’m making he/she a bunch of baby friends so they can have an pedo-orgy. That seems normal.

Also, everyone online seems to understand that some of them will grow and some won’t, so planting a few seeds will let you learn as you go and have better odds. Everyone online also seems obsessed, and now so do I. So there’s that.

There is much more to say about how to make sure they fruit, but I’ll write more on that soon!

Hope this helps! Here is Wilbur today, at 8 weeks old. (He’s 6 weeks and 4 days old in the first photo.)