Persea americana - Avocado

If you like to harvest your own Avocado-fruit you will get best results with a grafted plant: the small trees with their large, glossy, bluish green leaves are amazingly modest for a tropical plant. Grafted plants already start producing fruits 2 to 3 years after grafting. The fragrant flowers are small, yellowish-green and form a big panicle. They are self-fertile but sometimes there are differences in ripeness of pollen and pistil, so it may be of advantage to have a second plant. If the flowers are pollinated by insects, it takes 8 to 12 months in our climate until the fruits ripen. These should be harvested as long as they are firm and then be left for after-ripening in the house. This way, the fruits develop a better aroma whereas left on the tree, the ripeness stops naturally. We usually know pear-shaped avocados from the shelves in a shop but the fruits can as well be round or oblong oval. Whatever shape, all fruits have the same green, creamy-soft fruit pulp that is rich in oil (up to 30% of oil) as well as nutricious and very tasty. The dark-green peel is deeply textured to wrinkled.

Quality: worldwide known agricultural crop; fruits rich in oil and with a nutty taste; robust, tropical fruit plant
Use: all-year in a heated wintergarden or bright room; in pots from April to October outside in a protected spot on balcony, terrace and in the garden