Potted Avocado Care

Planting an avocado from seed is a process that many of us have done at some point as a project at school or as a simple experiment to see how it germinates, since it is one of the plants that allows us to better observe the process. If you want germinate and plant a potted avocado pit take note:

1. To start, you need the seed of an avocado. It is what is commonly called the stone of the fruit and serves any in good condition of an avocado that you have eaten. Clean the seed well of fruit remains and note that it has a pointed end, which will be the one that goes up, and a flat one, which is the bottom, where the root will grow.
2. Prepare 3 or 4 round toothpicks and stick them into the seed, preferably in a slightly downward path. This is done because only the bottom of it needs to be submerged, and the downward slope allows the entire base to be properly under water.
3. Put the seed on a glass with water, which thanks to the chopsticks will be held above the water. Adjust the water level so that about the bottom half of the seed is submerged.
4. Place the glass in a lighted area but protected from direct, high-intensity sunlight and change the water in the glass at least once a week to prevent the appearance of fungi or diseases that may affect your avocado.
5. When the shoot shows the first leaves, you can plant it in a pot. To do this, you will need to prepare the pot well, the substrate and place the germinated bone well. We recommend that you follow the more detailed steps that you will see in the transplant section.

In addition, we advise you to read this other post on How to germinate an avocado.

When it comes to transplanting a potted avocado, the first transplant is logically the most important. So much for plant a potted avocado for the first time to do its transplant because it has already grown enough and needs a little more space, follow these instructions:

1. Prepare a good-sized pot with drainage holes and a slightly acidic substrate, with a pH between 5 and 7. A mixture of peat moss, coconut fiber, worm castings and a good addition of perlite works very well with this plant. .
2. Make a hole for the small avocado and do not completely bury what remains of the fruit, leaving the entire root underground and ensuring that it is the birth of the stem that marks approximately the level of the ground.
3. Later you will only need to transplant your tree again when the container outgrows it and you will have to follow the same process.

Here you can learn much more about how to plant an avocado and when and how to transplant a plant.

Another of the most important potted avocado tree care is your location. When deciding if put the potted avocado plant indoors or outdoors, we must attend to the local climate. The avocado is a tree with a tropical or Mediterranean climate, so it cannot stand the cold. In areas with temperatures below 10 ºC you will need to place your avocado indoors, protected from the cold of winter. Nor does it tolerate temperatures above 30ºC or very direct intense sun, which could burn its leaves.

Irrigation is another of the most important potted avocado tree care. This species does not tolerate waterlogging, so it is very important that the prepared substrate offers very good drainage and that the pot has holes.

How much to water a potted avocado? There is no universal formula because it depends on the climate and the substrate, but it is necessary that you keep the avocado soil with a certain level of humidity. If you notice that the substrate is dry, water it. It is better to do it very frequently and in a small quantity than the other way around: large risks can flood and damage your avocado. If the leaves of your avocado start to turn brown at the tips, you need to water more because the plant is drying out.

Here you can see more tips on When to water the plants.

Regarding the subscriber, provide a new worm castings layer to the surface of the substrate at the beginning of the spring and again at the beginning of summer It will be enough to provide the tree with the nutrients it needs.

In this other post you can learn how to make earthworm humus and here you will learn how to make homemade organic fertilizer for plants.

The first avocado pruning It can be done while it is still in the glass of water, when the shoot is about 15 cm. The fact of pruning it when it is this long and cutting it in half will make it sprout more strongly, and when it reaches a height similar to what it had before, you can transplant it to the ground.

Later, when the tree is young but has already grown enough, it will be pruned for structure, maintenance and fruiting. The maintenance pruning They simply consist of removing the branches and dry or bad looking parts so that the plant does not waste energy on them. The structure and fruiting pruning They consist of giving the tree a suitable shape so that it grows according to the available space and so that it is easy to collect its fruits. About when to prune a potted avocadoremember that it is better to always do it at beginning of spring.

Now that you know all these cares for avocado in a pot, we encourage you to learn even more by reading these other EcologíaVerde guides on Pests and diseases of avocado and How to graft an avocado and when to do it.

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