Thursday, February 1, 2007

I've a cado problem.

I'm known to enjoy a good avocado every once in a while and seeing that nice, round pit always thrown in the trash I decided a few months ago to make something of it. Last September, I took it upon myself to get an avocado pit to sprout (initially it was growing in water then I transplanted it to a make-shift soda bottle pot). I set it in the window to grow and inverted a jar over the bottle to act as a greenhouse. Now, four months later, the plant seems to be doing ok although it hasn't been growing too much lately and the leaves are showing some browning.

I know that this plant will never produce fruit, but I just thought it would be a cool idea to have a small avocado tree as a houseplant. If there is anybody out there who thinks I'm wasting my time, that this plant will not continue to mature, etc. please let me know. Alternatively, if you think that there is something I could be doing to get it to grow better, I would appreciate that information as well. Thanks.

3 comments:

Jon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jon said...

John, I think this is exactly what you should be doing with your avocado pit.

Suppose you had just thrown it away. Then, we can assume, since we are in Madison and there is no real recycling here, and because avocado pits can't be recycled anyway, that it would be on the bottom of a landfill somewhere.

More than this, because it's such a hard substance, I doubt it would ever break down. Nuclear waste, and avocado pits, these things just don't go away. So, it would just stay there, for millions of years, serving no purpose.

Anyway, I found this, maybe it helps:
"If the leaves turn brown at the tips, the tree needs more water. If the leaves turn yellow, the tree is getting too much water and needs to be permitted to dry out for a day or two."

John said...

Sweet. Thanks.