AVOCADO IN WINTER


\

    I chose to plant an avocado seed in March 2018 in a room in my house, while the gloomy cold of winter hovered outside. I did not have any expectations. I was in a gardening phase where I was planting seeds from whatever fruit or vegetable I was eating. With the avocado pit in  around deep pot covered by soil, I put the pot near the window where the sun poured through in the morning. In May, I noticed with delight that the avocado tree was growing, as a firm stem had popped up above the soil.
    The Avocado tree is not fond of cold weather. Although Mr. Haas of the Haas Avocado was from the winter wonderland of Milwaukee before moving to Pasadena, the Haas Avocado was a graft from the Fuerte Avocado type. The Avocado tree is grown in Southern California in the United States, where the climate is dry and warm The United States Department of Agriculture  has a plant hardiness map (PHZM), which lists 18 different climate zones for the USA. Southern California has a hardiness zone of 10a. My zone is 6a.
    According to Oregon State University, hardiness zones (PHZM) are based on the average annual extreme minimum temperature during a 30-year period in the past. My devil may care attitude in planting the avocado pit in March in my house in my climate zone was not based on a rational assessment of the PHZM. In addition, my garden may be in a micro-climate, in which my backyard concrete can create a small heat island.
    The avocado tree, in general, does not like frost or temperatures under 50 degrees Fahrenheit, as the Southern California climate zone indicates. I am nowhere near Southern California. Not surprisingly, I am not in the right growing climate zone for the avocado tree. I am too far north for the avocado tree to thrive in the winter, as the winter here gets below freezing on many days. So when autumn threatens to switch to winter, I bring my avocado tree inside the house to wait out the winter. The room of the house that I put the avocado tree in has no insulation, which makes the room quite nippy in the winter.  As cold as it was in the house, the winter weather was even colder outside. Some days I would see snow swirling outside, and I wondered if the avocado tree knew it was snowing outside.           
    I heard on the radio that a man in NYC, who lived in an apartment, also brought his avocado tree inside from the balcony where it lived during the summer months. He reported how his avocado tree lost all its leaves in the winter after bringing it inside. However, my avocado kept most of its leaves in the winter, even as it struggled in the cold. Each time I entered the room where the lovely avocado tree was living, I spoke to it. I sang to it. I paid attention to it. I even did Reiki on it.
    The second summer came, and I brought the avocado tree outside, where the avocado tree thrived. The avocado tree grew taller, with more branches budding on the top. At the beginning of summer, the avocado tree was about 6 feet tall. At the end of summer, the avocado tree was about 9 feet tall. I wondered if I could fit the avocado tree into the winter room so that it would not sweep the ceiling with its leaves.
    So in October, as the warmer weather is scheduled to go south and the winter weather takes its place, I am planning once again to bring the avocado tree inside. Once again, the avocado tree will be in a cold non insulated room. Only now, I feel this avocado tree is ready to face the winter again, knowing it is loved and attended to.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FROM KAKI TO PERSIMMON

Image
         Although the Persimmon is a global fruit, I had never eaten persimmon in my childhood. The first time I recall seeing a persimmon fruit was not in the supermarket but on the ground in Italy, after having fallen off a tree. I was curious what this orange fruit that was rotting on the ground in front of me was: the answer was Kaki.     The Italian word Kaki was derived from the Japanese word Gaki, so that the word itself creates a historical record of the origin of the fruit. However, the Kaki or Persimmon is native to Japan, China, Korea, Burma and Nepal. Yet, somehow the Japanese word is the word that jumped to Italian. Yet, the word Kaki did not jump to English. Instead Kaki becomes Persimmon, which is derived from the Algonquian word for dried fruit, which is derived from the American variety of persimmon.     I learned the word kaki, though I did not eat kaki or persimmon until 15 years later. At that time in Italy, I knew of the kaki as a fruit that grew on a tree in a pub
Read more

THE MANY ROOTS OF THE GARDEN

Image
         I envisioned the garden. I sowed the seeds of the garden. I watered the garden. I harvested the garden. The garden was my hands, built from my intention that fueled my energy to create and form. But more than that, the garden involves the many moments beyond the designing of the garden, and sowing the seeds, for the garden also involves when the sun catches then garden during the day, or when the rain falls on the garden, or when I walk in the garden looking at the flowers and the stems and the soil. All of these add to my original idea of the garden. From my original creation of a garden, I created infinite possibilities involving those moments of the garden within the garden and linked to the garden.     In my heart, I decided to grow vegetables, even though I had never grown vegetables before. Instead of seeing the space in my backyard as the site of my garden, I looked at other sites always seeking the spot for the garden. Then  I listened to the voice of my loved one, and
Read more

SEEDING THE GARDEN

Image
    Now that I had planted the seeds according to a design of square footing and height guidelines, I became the expectant observer waiting and watching for the sprouts to break the surface and grow. I was now on nature time.     Nature time is the organic cycle of day and night, sun and rain. These cycles have their own sense of intention and presence. These cycles are reflected in each seed, in which each is endowed with the intention to fulfill its mission to grow and prosper. The radish seed becomes a radish. The fennel seed becomes a fennel. The chard seed becomes a chard. Each seed also has its presence. This presence infuses each seed with a connection to the universal consciousness, so that each seed interacts with soil and sun, wind and rain.     In participating in gardening, I became intertwined with the presence of each seed that I planted. My participation seemed to focus on the food that each seed would become, so that I was aware of the presence but I was not in tune wit
Read more