Mango plant

December 11, 2019

Mango plant

Yes, it should be ‘mango tree’, but let’s face it: I’m living in The Netherlands, the best I can do is a plant! Here’s what I did:

Summer 2018: eat a mango

Or in my case: let someone else eat a mango (not my favourite fruit). If all goes well you’re left with a large, flat thing. If you carefully squeeze it, you’ll notice there’s something inside the wooden outer layer. That’s what you need!

Get to the good stuff

Some people are able to crack the outer layer very slowly and delicately with a knife. I, however, am not, so I decided to grab a saw and another thing to keep it steady. Be carefull though, you don’t want to hurt the pit! Feel the edges so you know where there’s no pit.
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    I needed some tools...

    Knop
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    Knop
This pit of mine was still attached to its wooden outer layer, it looked like an umbilical cord. I just cut it…

Hot & wet

I washed the pit and put it in a damp paper cloth in a ziplock bag. I kept it warm. Though leaving it on your South faced rooftop terrace is a bad idea: my first pit burnt…

I aired it almost every day. After 1,5 weeks a very tiny root was already visible!

3,5 weeks: ready or not?

I decided to keep it in the moist towel in the ziplock bag, even though the start of a stem was visible.

4,5 weeks: potting it up

I kinda forgot about it the following week, until I glanced at it and something caught my attention… Yup, leaves! It was clearly ready for soil.
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But how do you put it in soil? I decided to burry the whole pit, somewhat slanted, in the soil. So just the stem and leaves were popping out.

Updates until summer 2019

Stay tuned for more updates!

Follow me on Instagram or Facebook to see the progress! I'll post an updates blog as well when there's enough to tell :-)

Did you like this article? Head over to the Seed spectacle page for more!

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