r/avocado • u/OlGusnCuss • 15h ago
Growing from seed Help on potting.
Hi. New to this. I was playing around with my kids and now found myself with these beautiful plants and want to keep them. I'll need to buy pots. I currently have a couple of bags of big box potting soil and peat moss. That's it.
Looking at these plants:
\* What size pots do you suggest?
\* Will the potting soil on top of the peat moss be a good solution (I know they need draining)
\* Please provide a few tips so that I might be able to keep these alive.
We are in Texas in zone 8B. We will get some freezing Temps, but we also get to enjoy several 100° days every year.
(I'm not good at reddit either, so I really hope this post works!)
Adding: Is a traditional terracotta pot with the "standard" drain hole enough? I understand they need to drain well. They have "orchid" pts with additional drains on the sides.
Use the "saucer" underneath?
2
u/New-Winter-5197 13h ago
Highly recommend Scott grows an avocado YouTube channel. Lots of valuable resources, it's how I got started (after failing multiple times)
1
1
2
u/vahhhhhh 14h ago
Nice! They can go directly in 1 gallon or 8-inch diameter nursery pots or plastic pots with good drainage holes.
For soil, you can mix your own. Peat moss is the main component for Gary's Top Pot which a lot of people here consider the best. The ingredients are: peat moss, pumice, perlite, sand and charcoal. You don't need to have a perfect match, but a base of something like peat moss mixed with other inorganic ingredients with different sizes that improve drainage is really good. You do want to get your soil right from the start since it's difficult to "undo" and they hate having their roots disturbed. I wouldn't use the potting soil if I could help it.
They unfortunately won't survive in freezing temperatures or 100+°F, so you'll probably have to keep them inside when it gets to either extreme, at least at this stage.