January 15, 2013

Our Avocado Tree: Winter Update


As promised in yesterday's winter garden update, today we wanted to give a little winter progress report on the state of our avocado tree we've been growing from the pit. We haven't given an update on this guy since early fall back when we planted it in a soil filled-container, so we're more than overdue.

That being said, we don't have too much progress to actually report — above is what we're looking like today, which isn't too different from where we last checked in here:


Back in September (when the above photo was taken), we had finally planted our growing avocado plant in a planter with soil and have been watering it generously ever since with hopes of seeing it spring up tall and wide.

Alas, the plant hasn't really changed much at all.


Basil doesn't mind though...

While we are thrilled it's actually stayed alive, we'd hoped to have seen at least a little more substantial growth at this point. We've tried things like rotating it around the house in front of different windows (the bathroom, the back room, the front room, etc) but have found it seems to do well for right now on the floor in front of the same kitchen windowsill it's been used to. We're also trying to get the stem to grow more vertically, towards the light, by placing it underneath the window like this.


At one point while in a different location, we noticed this slight browning on the tip of one of the leaves — putting it back in front of the window has seemed to help with this:


Here's another shot with me holding the plant to show scale:


We're not too worried about the slow growth since this same plant basically had a dormant growth period for a few months this same time last year before shooting up a crazy tall stem with leaves in early spring. So, we're hopeful that we'll see one of those growth spurts again this spring and summer within this little container.


Plus, we are much further along from where we first began with just the pits:


So that's how we're looking on the avocado front! This has definitely been one of the slowest growing projects we've ever taken on, but it's also been a rewarding experience and a fun house plant.

We still have the second stem hanging out in water with the other windowsill plants:


Hopefully we'll get this guy planted at some point soon too.

Have you been growing avocados or other house plants? Do they also have a slower growth period during the winter months like ours?

- + Keep up with our Full Avocado growing Experiment + -

P.S. Can you beleive how well our celery plant keeps growing back, even after we completely trimmed it down? It's the plant that keeps on giving!

7 comments

  1. Our avocado plant looks the same...nice straight stem and beautiful green leaves. When our leaves started to brown, I snipped them off! Then it started sprouting a few new leaves.

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  2. I love keeping up with your plant progress. After reading a few of your avocado posts, I realized avocados are a VERY long term plant. And yet, I've placed two toothpicked pits in my window sill. No sprouts yet, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled. :)

    I love your blog and finally started my own indoor garden and gave it a blog to match. http://repininreallife.blogspot.com/

    I get most of my blogging inspiration from you guys and it's very encouraging to see your plants, even the ones who aren't doing so well.

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  3. Hi friends, your blog is really interesting for me, thank you for share. I like to grown my own food too, but i just move back to Argentina so i don't have to much for show yet. I try 2 different ways to grow the avocado, i put 1 seed in water like you and the other directly into the container with soil (inside the house) They both growing but the second one was faster. Thank you again, Flor

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  4. Greeting from Malaysia. I love your avocado progress. I grow my avocado in dirts. Once I go the 1st 3 leaves, i snipped of the main stem a quarter of an inch above the top 3rd leaf. Now I have 3 branches!!!!!

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  5. We started a plant 2 years ago but we cleaned the pit, wrapped it in moist paper towel, put it in an airtight container and left it in a warm dark place for about 5 weeks and then planted it.
    The plant grew great, but I managed to kill it when I switched to a larger pot.
    We have 2 to more I started 6 moths ago, 1 is 12 inches tall and the other is 18 inches.
    These I started during the winter, we heat with wood so the house gets to be about 80 during the day and cools 10 to 15 degrees at night.
    I also have a fan I run on them once in a while to thicken the stems.

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  6. I purchased my California avocado tree from Home Depot. It was about 3 feet tall at purchase. I planted it in my Florida back yard close to a shed where it got some sun but not a lot. Then I fertilized it away from the trunk in a circle by spreading the fertilizer on top of the ground so that the feeder roots can go get it. I used Organic Citrus Tone for citrus and avocados by Espoma. Then I purchased 3 avocados (same type) at the grocery store and planted the seeds about a foot and a half away from the trunk so that the roots will intermingle. I water it everyday (avocados take a lot of water). The tree is now 10 feet tall, healthy looking and it had one small avocado which a heave rain knocked it off. All this in a period of 3 months. I will fertilize the tree in the same manner every three months. I expect that by next summer it will have avocados. This type of avocado can withstand temperatures down to 20 degrees which it never gets that low in Florida.

    I do have another Florida avocado tree which is also doing quite well. My wife planted that seed in a pot. I also use the same fertilizer and I expect that one to get big like the other.

    I hope this helps you guys out. Best wishes! :)

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  7. I've heard that avocado trees need to be planted in pairs to grow properly....not sure how or why that would be-have you ever heard that?

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