It All Started With a Salad

It all started with a salad.  Well, actually, it started when the Canajans came to visit last February.  On their snowbird trek from Manitoba to Florida, our friends Marci and Glen made a stop in Cave Spring to visit a few days with their favorite Jawjans. 

Glen and Monty were out doing things that men do with big-boy toys like tractors and backhoes and motorhomes and such.  Marci and I were two sis-chicks spending time together on photo shoots, bargain hunting (shopping), and chats over lunches.   

Then came the day Marci and I decided to stay home and have lunch at the cabin on Bucks Mountain.  A salad would be nice – a big one with all the fixins.  Marci peeled and cut up the avocado and casually said that I could grow my own avocado tree from that big ole seed inside.  So she found a little plastic cup.  She pierced the seed on three sides with toothpicks.  The toothpicks became the “supports” that lie on the cup’s sides and suspended the avocado seed half in the cup, half out of the cup.  The heck you say!  I had never seen that done.

She filled the cup so that only the bottom half of the seed was sitting in water.  Then she sat the cup on my kitchen window sill.  As the water eventually evaporated, my job was to keep the bottom of the seed in water.  Marci sprouted her snowbird wings and went off with Glen to Florida to bask in the heat.

A few weeks passed.  I had faithfully kept the avocado’s hiney covered in water.  Nothing was happening.  I sent an email to the Great White North.  Was I doing something wrong?  No, she replied. It just takes awhile.  Look for a crack in the seed.  Mmmmm.  I should be looking for a crack in the avocado’s hiney?  [Please.  No comments from the peanut gallery.]

A few more weeks passed and then I saw it!  The seed was starting to pull apart.  There was a crack starting to form right down the middle of the seed, all way round.  I was encouraged and made sure the hiney stayed in the water.

More weeks passed.  The crack grew wider, but nothing happened.  Spring had now sprung in Jawja.  I sent another message to the still frozen Great White North.  No, Marci replied, don’t throw it away.  Give it some more time. 

A few more weeks went by.  I was still keeping water on the avocado seed hiney.  Temptation was growing to throw the darn, cracked thing in the trash.  But Marci had said….  Patience woman! 

It now was months since that day of the big salad with all the fixins.  On one early summer morning, I groggily shuffled my way into the kitchen to look out the window.  As I was about to turn away, I saw it.  A root was growing out of the seed’s hiney!   Excited, I sent off a message to the now Great Thawed North.  Do I transplant it to a pot now?  No, came the reply, I must wait for it to sprout from the top of the seed and put out a leaf.   

On a early July morning I was again groggily looking out my kitchen window.  There were deer grazing in the grass, but something was in my line of vision.  It was three leaves.  My pampered little seed hiney had finally become an Avocado tree! 

It was a long journey.  It was high-maintenance seed propagation.  Lots of water.  Extreme patience. 

Growing an avocado tree is not for the hasty or the impetuous.  But if one day you are having a big salad with all the fixins and you are wondering if you could grow your own avocado tree from that seed in your hand, well… you can.  Just fill up the watering can and get yourself a boat load of patience.  And send me an email when you are tempted to throw the darn thing in the trash.
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I’ve also been reminiscing, pondering, and musing on these topics:

One my early dates with the hubby
My first lesson on biscuit making

The lost art of letter writing
Cups for hot mochas.Say Good Night Gracie.
My first visit to the library with my Mama
Driving Mama over the Edge
It’s a Little Off the Wall
Crushing on The Professor
The Avocado Tree
From Baby Food Jars to Peanut Butter Jars
Christmas Memories
Theory of Pancake Relativity
The Pajama Party