Tossed a whole avocado pit in my bokashi bucket, it sprouted roots through the side 3 weeks later

I read online you could compost pretty much anything with bokashi so I just chucked a whole avocado pit in there without cutting it up. A month later I went to drain the liquid and saw this pale root thing poking out of a crack in the side of the bucket. Turns out that pit was determined to grow despite being pickled in fermenting food scraps. Has anyone else had a seed or pit go rogue in their indoor compost setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew_thomas917d ago

The pit just decided it wasn't done yet. Bokashi fermentation is aggressive but some seeds are tougher than that. I've had ginger and potato scraps try to sprout in my bucket before. You basically made a tiny pickled avocado tree experiment.

uma_mitchell8316d ago

I gotta push back a little on "the pit just decided it wasn't done yet." In my experience, that's giving the pit too much credit. It's not being stubborn on purpose, it's just that avocado pits have this really thick, woody shell that takes forever to break down, even in a bokashi bucket. So what you've got isn't a rogue plant, it's a seed that basically ignored the fermentation process because the microbes couldn't get through that tough outer layer. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd bet if you cracked the pit open first, you wouldn't see any roots at all. Your mileage may vary, but I've had better luck just cutting them up or crushing them before tossing them in.