- 21 hours ago
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00:00The next time you eat an avocado, stop before you throw away that big stone in the middle, for inside
00:07it is a whole tree.
00:09From that one pit you were about to bin, you can grow a fine green tree of your own, a
00:15handsome thing,
00:16and you can start it in a cut-up plastic bottle that was also bound for the rubbish, on your
00:22windowsill,
00:23watching it split and root and sprout right before your eyes.
00:28Today I am going to show you the whole old way of it, and I am going to be honest
00:34with you about what it will and will not give you,
00:37more honest than most, for there is a wonder here, and there is a catch, and you deserve both.
00:44So keep up, for by the end you will grow a tree from a thing you throw away for nothing.
00:51I am Elias, and growing a tree from the seed of the fruit you ate is one of the finest
00:58thrifty wonders there is,
01:00and the avocado is one of the most satisfying of all to do it with, for you watch the whole
01:06miracle happen out in the open.
01:09So let me hand you the way of it.
01:11Quick word before I go further.
01:14The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
01:20I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:25The book is the long version.
01:28If you want it, it is there.
01:30I will not mention it again.
01:32My aunt had a great leafy avocado tree in a tub by her sunny window that she had grown herself
01:39from a single pit,
01:40and as a boy I thought it the most wonderful thing, a whole tree taller than me grown from a
01:48stone out of a fruit.
01:49It never gave her an avocado in all its years, mind, and she did not care a whit,
01:56for she grew it for the green of it and the wonder, and it was the finest houseplant in the
02:01county.
02:02Some things you grow for the fruit, Elias, she said, and some you grow just for the joy of watching
02:09a thing live.
02:11So let me hand you how she did it, honest about both.
02:16First, the getting and readying of the pit.
02:19When you cut your avocado, take care not to cut into the stone with your knife, and lift it out
02:25whole.
02:26Then wash it clean of all the green flesh, every bit, for flesh left on will rot and mold and
02:34spoil it, and let it dry a little.
02:37Now here is a thing many folk do not know and get wrong, that a pit has a top and
02:43a bottom, and you must plant it the right way up.
02:46Look at it close. One end is a bit more pointed, and the other end is flatter and broader, and
02:54often you will see a little pale roughened spot on that flat end.
02:58That flat, broad end is the bottom, for from there the roots come, and the pointed end is the top,
03:06from where the sprout climbs.
03:08Plant it upside down, and it wastes itself or fails.
03:12So mark your pit, pointed end up, flat end down.
03:17Now the old way to sprout it, the wonder of it, is to hold that pit with its flat bottom,
03:23just touching water, so it drinks and roots while you watch.
03:28And here is where your plastic bottle comes in, a thrifty, free cradle, to hold it just so.
03:35You take a plastic bottle, and cut it in two across the middle.
03:40Then you take the top half, the neck half, and turn it upside down, and set it down into the
03:46bottom half, like a funnel sitting in a cup.
03:49Now you have a little stand.
03:52You fill the bottom cup with water up near the top, and you set your avocado pit down into the
03:58funnel of the neck, flat end down, so that the pit sits held in the neck, with just its flat
04:04bottom dipping into the water below, and its pointed top standing up in the air.
04:10And there it is held, perfectly, drinking from below, no toothpicks, no fuss, in a thing you were throwing away.
04:19A cut bottle, a funnel in a cup, and your pit sits sprouting in it.
04:25Now the tending while it sprouts, and it asks two things, water and patience.
04:31Keep the water topped up, so the bottom of the pit is always just touching it, never let it dry,
04:38for the moment it dries out, it dies.
04:42And change the water every few days for fresh, so it stays clean and does not foul and rot.
04:49Set it in a warm, bright spot, a warm windowsill, for warmth speeds it.
04:55And then, patience, for here is the honest, slow part.
05:00An avocado is in no hurry, and it may sit there looking like it is doing nothing for weeks, three,
05:07four, six weeks, even eight, before anything happens, and folk give up too soon.
05:14Do not.
05:16Keep the water fresh and wait.
05:19And then one day the pit cracks open down its length, a split right down it, and down from the
05:26flat bottom into the water comes a single thick root, and up from the top rises a little sprout, and
05:34away it goes.
05:35Keep it watered and warm and wait, and it will crack and root and sprout in its own good time.
05:43And here is one old help to hurry a slow pit along, that if you gently peel off the thin,
05:51dark, papery skin from the pit, before you set it to water, the bare pit will often take up water
05:57and crack and root a good bit quicker, for that skin is a bit of a barrier.
06:03Peel it careful, just the thin skin, not the pit beneath, and set it to water, bare.
06:10It is no must, but it hurries a slow one.
06:13Now once it has a good root down, and a sprout up a few inches, it is time to give
06:19it soil, for it cannot live on water forever.
06:23And here again your bottle serves, for you plant it into a bottle planter, a cut bottle with a few
06:30drainage holes poked in the bottom, filled with good soil, or any pot with drainage.
06:35Fill it with a rich, but well-draining soil. Plenty of compost worked in, but loose so it does not
06:43sit soggy, for the avocado wants to be moist, but never waterlogged. Its roots rot in a swamp.
06:51And you plant your sprouted pit in it, gently, so as not to break that thick root, setting the pit
06:58down in the soil, but leaving the very top of the pit, its shoulders, poking up just above the soil,
07:06not buried deep.
07:07Firm it, gentle, and water it in.
07:11Now it grows on in soil, in the light.
07:14Now a bit of shaping, for here is a thing about an avocado grown from a pit, that left alone,
07:21it shoots straight up into a single, tall, bare, leggy stick, ugly and weak.
07:28So you make it bush out instead, and here is how.
07:32When your sprout has grown up to about a foot tall, you pinch or cut out the very top of
07:39it, the growing tip, nipping it back.
07:42And that makes the plant stop shooting up and instead send out side branches lower down, growing bushy and full
07:51and handsome instead of a bare pole.
07:53And you can pinch it back again as those branches grow, to keep it full.
07:59So nip the top when it is a foot tall, and grow a bushy tree instead of a bare stick.
08:05And do not fear to nip it, for folk are timid to cut the one shoot they have grown with
08:11such patience, but that one cut is the making of a full, handsome plant, where leaving it makes a sad,
08:19bare pole.
08:19So steel yourself and pinch that tip.
08:24Now the growing on, plainly.
08:26It wants plenty of bright light, a sunny window, all you can give it.
08:32And through the warm months it loves to be set outside in the sun.
08:36But mind, the avocado is a warm country tree, and the frost kills it dead.
08:43So in the cold country, it is a house plant, a tub tree.
08:47And you must bring it indoors before the first frost every fall, and keep it in a bright window through
08:54the winter.
08:55Out and in with the seasons, the same as I have shown you for the lemon and the orange.
09:01Water it well, but let the top of the soil dry a little between, never soggy, for wet feet is
09:08the great killer of it, and a yellowing of its leaves is often too much water, not too little.
09:15Feed it gently now and then with a bit of compost, or compost tea.
09:21And one more honest word on the watering.
09:24That the avocado is touchy about the water itself, disliking a hard, limey, salty water.
09:31So if your tap water is very hard, water it with caught rain water when you can, soft from the
09:39sky, which it far prefers.
09:41And it will show you its thanks in greener leaves and browner tips the other way.
09:47And pot it up into a bigger pot as it grows and fills the old one.
09:52Now here comes the honest part I promised you, about the fruit.
09:57And I will not sweeten it, for you deserve the truth.
10:02Do not grow this expecting a bowl of avocados any time soon, or perhaps ever.
10:09Here is the plain truth of it.
10:11An avocado from a pit takes a very long time to fruit, if it fruits at all.
10:17Five years, ten, even more.
10:19And many a tree grown indoors in a pot in the cold country never fruits at all, for it never
10:26gets the size nor the conditions it needs.
10:29And here is the second truth, that a pit does not grow true to the fruit it came from.
10:35The seed is a mix, so your tree, even if it does fruit one day, will likely give a different
10:41and often a poorer avocado than the fine one you ate, a lucky dip.
10:46And a third, that most avocados need two trees of different sorts near each other to pollinate and fruit well,
10:54so a lone tree may bear little even grown.
10:57So I will be straight, grow this for the wonder and the beauty of it, a fine handsome green tree
11:03for your window and your porch, grown for nothing from a thrown away pit, a grand thing in itself, and
11:10a joy to raise.
11:11But do not grow it counting on the fruit, for that is a long shot and a long wait.
11:17And if it is avocados you truly want, and sooner, the sure way is not a pit at all, but
11:24a young grafted tree of a known good sort from a nursery, which fruits far sooner and true.
11:30So grow the pit for the tree and the wonder, and buy a grafted one if you want the fruit
11:35for certain.
11:36Now let me say a small plain word, not a who-profits sermon, for an avocado pit is no one's
11:43scheme.
11:44But notice what grew this fine tree, a pit you were throwing in the bin, a cut-up bottle that
11:50was rubbish too, a bit of soil, and some water and patience.
11:54Not a pot bought, not a thing spent, a whole handsome tree grown from two things bound for the rubbish
12:01and a window sill.
12:02There is a great trade in selling folk house plants at a fine price at the garden store, the very
12:08sort of green tree you just grew for nothing from your lunch.
12:12So folk come to think a fine green plant for the window must be bought, when it rides inside the
12:18fruit they eat, and grows in the bottle they throw away.
12:21That old thrift, of growing beauty and green and the wonder of a living tree from what the world discards,
12:28is worth more than any bought plant.
12:31So there is the old way to grow an avocado tree from a single pit, in a bottle.
12:36Wash the pit clean, and know its top from its bottom, pointed up, flat down.
12:42Cut a bottle and set its neck upside down in its base for a free cradle, fill with water, and
12:48sit the pit in it with its flat bottom just touching the water.
12:52Keep the water fresh and warm and wait, weeks, till it cracks and roots and sprouts.
12:58Then pot it into soil in a bottle planter with drainage, its shoulders above the soil.
13:04Nip its top at a foot tall to make it bushy.
13:07Grow it in a bright window, bring it in before frost, and never let it sit soggy.
13:12And know the honest truth, that it is a fine free tree and a wonder to raise, but a long
13:18shot for fruit,
13:19so grow it for the beauty and graft a known tree if you want avocados for sure.
13:25Do these, and from a pit and a bottle you both would have thrown away, you will grow a handsome
13:31living tree, for nothing.
13:33Now I want to hear from you.
13:34Tell me down below whether you have ever grown an avocado from its pit, and how far it got for
13:40you, sprouted or grown to a tree,
13:42and whether you had known to plant it flat end down, for that one trips folk.
13:47And tell me your county, and how cold your winters, for in the cold it is a houseplant to bring
13:52in,
13:53and I would know how you all fare with it.
13:55I read every one.
13:57Next time, I want to show you the old craft of grafting a fruit tree,
14:01the sure, faster way to grow a tree that truly fruits, and fruits true,
14:06an exact copy of a known good tree bearing years sooner than any pit or seed,
14:12the answer for when you want the fruit, and not just the wonder.
14:15The old people saw a tree in the stone of the fruit they ate, and grew green and beauty and
14:21sometimes fruit from what others threw away,
14:24patient over the years, asking nothing of any store, for the joy of raising a living thing as much as
14:31for its harvest.
14:31There is a quiet wisdom in that, in growing a whole tree from a thing bound for the bin, in
14:37a vessel bound for the bin,
14:39and valuing the wonder of the growing as much as the fruit at the end.
14:45The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
14:51And the most common sighting, which is the main thing, we are also trying to figure out through the form
14:51of the fruit tree
14:51No, you could go on a tree tree.