Mango’s are lush, scrumptious and a great eat for breakfast and snack or in salads and desserts. Just imagine if you could pick them off the tree in your own backyard… Well, actually you can and it’s not even that much of a toughie to grow! Here are Shiokfarm‘s Claire Chabrieres 4 easy step on how to grow your own mango!
Mango
#1 Once you are done eating your mango, make sure you keep the pit. Clean it well to remove all its hair. Inside the mango pit, there is a seed. Carefully cut along the length of the pit to get to the seed – be careful not to cut too deeply and damage the seed.
Seed
#2 Once the seed has been collected, wrap it in a damp paper (tissue, cotton ball) and place it in a sealed jar. Make sure the jar stays moist and let the seed germinate for 2 to 3 weeks. Once shoots start to appear, your seed is ready to be planted.
Planting
#3 You can, therefore, deposit the seed in the soil while being careful to leave the stem out of the soil. It is indeed this part that will grow and become the shrub! For a seed to germinate it needs water, nutrients and light. To provide these, use highly nutritive soil. For instance, 2/3 of black organic soil and 1/3 of compost (do not use clay soil for instance).
Our tip is to place some rocks (if possible volcanic rocks) at the base of the pot so water can pass through the soil and not pool in the bottom of the pot. Place your pot near a window and make sure the soil is always moisturized by watering the pot whenever needed.
Rooting
#4 After a few months, your seed would have grown into a little bush. You might want to transfer it to a bigger pot so that it has room to grow. You will need to wait a little bit before it gives you its first fruits, probably 5 to 8 years… But it is definitely worth the wait: nothing beats fresh mangoes from the garden for breakfast!
