Mango update

Well, the mango seed I posted about just over a month ago has grown! It produced a stem quite quickly, but the top was all black and we thought it wouldn't progress. We went away on holiday and when we came back it had grown four tiny leaves. Now two of them have fallen off. We've currently got a problem with fungus gnat so this may be the issue here too. If you look carefully in the picture you can see where the stem was black, it suddenly becomes narrower.

The older mango tree seems quite happy. It produced two large new leaves while we were gone, but hasn't increased in height. The new leaves are as long as the stem! Maybe even a bit longer.

It is quite warm in our house year round but the sun doesn't come in until afternoon, so I have been putting the mangoes outside on hot days to get more sunshine. So far they haven't caught anything I don't want inside (like greenfly or ants!)

To grow a mango...

We ate another mango recently and I decided to see if we could grow a second little tree. The first seems happy enough, it has four largish leaves and some tiny ones coming, but it doesn't appear to be growing any more. Probably it's not getting enough sunshine, it has been very rainy and cool.

So here is what we did, in pictures:

This is what a mango pit looks like when you've scrubbed off most of the flesh that you couldn't scrape off and eat. This pit was particularly hairy! I had soaked the previous one in a bowl of warm water (renewing the water every day or two) for about a week, but then got tired of that and opened the husk, so with this one I decided to open it up straight away to get things moving.

I prised open the husk very carefully at the end that had been connected to the stalk. It doesn't show up so well on the pic, but that's the mango seed inside the husk, and it already has the beginnings of a root! (Not the brown stringy bit you can see, that's just where it was connected to the stalk inside the husk) My first seed didn't sprout until after it had been out for several days, but I had heard that they sometimes do, so was being extra careful.

There it is, looking rather like some odd type of seafood. I love the pretty markings on the skin. My first seed didn't have a split in its root like this one either, I don't know if this is something to do with its already rooting in the husk or if there's something wrong with it. I'm pretty sure it's the same kind of mango!

The little seed outside the husk. You can see the root at the far end, and the place where the shoot may grow from at the near end (I think). I pulled off the pretty skin because that's what I did with the first one, although I don't know if it was really necessary since this one had already rooted. Probably not. Then I put it in wet kitchen roll for a few days, but as nothing much happened I decided it would probably be happier in a pot, so planted it. And that is where it still is. The pot is about 1 litre in size, maybe even a bit more. I hope it grows!

Wordless Wednesday

Mango, Tuesday 23rd June

Some of my saplings

This was going to be my Wordless Wednesday post, but I didn't take the photos soon enough. Never mind.

Mango seedling emerging from the earth on Monday morning.

Mango sapling on Thursday afternoon.

I actually half expected it to grow faster than this, but I guess it doesn't get as much sun and heat as it would in, say, India. Isn't it cute though? All those leaves were already there when it emerged from the earth, they've just opened up now.

My first avocado plant.

First of this batch, that is. I had one for several years as a child. The others are mostly at the sitting-in-water-doing-nothing stage. One has a root. One split open when I accidentally dropped it in getting it out of the fruit, so I've put it in water anyway but I don't know if it will grow.

Some sites for mango and avocado care:

Tropical permaculture (mangoes)
Avocados
More avocados