Back in the '70s, a massive add campaign from the California Avocado Growers Association created a serial cartoon that appeared in most major women's magazines promoting the in home propagation of California avocados. The main character was Isadora, the quintessential "single girl on her own". Isadora showed us, step by step, how to stick the tooth picks in, which was top from bottom, and the level of water to maintain. She talked openly to her plants and her avocado grew happily on the window sill of her modest, single girl apartment.
I followed her instructions and thirty five years later, my mother has a twenty foot high tree that produces generous amounts of huge, tasty, Florida avocados.
Without Isadora's help, I have failed many times in getting my avocado pits to sprout roots. I thought I was missing a step and would give up after two weeks. That was my problem, it took a month of patience to see the roots.
