How to grow an avocado plant from a pit

My kids and I love growing plants from seeds we’ve collected and cuttings. And every so often we try to grown some plant or other from our vegetables. But alas, this usually fails. My pineapple plant rotted away before it became anything, carrots never sprouted and I’ve thrown out loads of avocado pits that just never did anything.

But then, shortly after seeing an avocado plant that my brother-in-law had managed to grow, I saw this Pin on Pinterest on how to grow an avocado plant from a pit. I decided to try just ONE more time, posting my progress as time went on on Instagram, and wouldn’t you know… it WORKED!!

This was actually the tutorial that inspired me to start my Pintastic! series, in which I review tutorials found on Pinterest and give my verdict as to whether or not they work. So, let me show you just how I managed to grow an avocado plant from a pit!

The tutorial on inhabitat explains how to clean the avocado pit and figure out which end is which. Who knows, perhaps this is where I screwed up in the past.

I then stuck toothpicks in it and stuck it in a jar of water so that only part of it was submerged. This tutorial didn’t say anything about removing the outer skin of the pit before putting it in water, though a friend of mine did remove it with excellent results.

In any case, after many weeks of keeping it in the direct sun and changing the water patiently, the skin started turning brown and cracking off. After another while, the pit started to crack into two parts, as you can see above. This thrilled me because it was already more of a result than I’d ever gotten before.

The tutorial said that it takes about 8 weeks for a root to start to grow. Eight weeks came and went with no root, and my friend who’d started his seed around the same time started seeing roots and a sprout. Eventually the roots and sprout did finally start, but it took at least twice that time.

I waited for the sprout to grow 6 inches high before planting it in soil, however it just wasn’t growing any higher. Seeing as the roots had developed quite nicely, I decided to plant it anyway.

Once it got into soil, it just took off! It grew and grew into three separate stems with lovely shiny green leaves. The picture above is from early July of last year. It actually got WAY bigger than this with relatively large leaves. The tutorial shows a plant with a long single stem with leaves at the top. My plant, on the other hand, was shorter but much fuller. I was thrilled!

Alas, I never took a picture of it at that stage and then the cold suddenly hit when it was still living out on the balcony, and it dried out. I cut it back, moved it indoors in the sun, and the cut stumps are now sprouting and growing day by day.

This was the first time that I’d managed to successfully grow an avocado plant from a pit so, without a doubt, this Pin deserved a “Loved it” rating! (Did you know that you can now rate Pins on Pinterest? Read here to find out how it works.)

If you love getting new ideas from Pinterest, don’t forget to bookmark the Pintastic! home page to keep updated on all the Pinterest tutorial reviews!

And, if you’ve always wanted to grow an avocado plant from a pit, save this project here!

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