This tree — which looked like this in 2015 — was grown by Meade from avocado pits and now is cramped by the 9-foot ceiling in the room. And even though I think there's no use encouraging it to get any taller and the task of getting it through the 6-and-a-half-foot door requires some difficult horizontalization...
... and I kind of think it belongs indoors because it really ties the room together, Meade powered the beast over the threshold...
... and got those wheels over the deck cracks to where it would pull the indoor eye outdoors. And Meade even posed the dog...
... while all I did was take these photographs and celebrate the ritual on the internet.
Postscript: The mystery of the disappearing Macron tree has been solved: It has been moved temporarily into quarantine. The roots were always enclosed in plastic, and the quarantine was mandatory and planned all along.
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65 comments:
Hubby might try the Harvey Weinstein version of plant food.
Is that Zeus?
Can avocados live outdoors in Michigan?
"The mystery of the disappearing Macron tree has been solved..." War narrowly averted.
I think this post deserves a link Trump Derangement Syndrome.
I heard on CNN that Trump removed the tree and took it to the white house basement where he cranked rap music, did a line of coke and peed all over the tree like an angry Russian dog.
..and then things got weird.
This tree...was grown by Meade from avocado pits...
I've got two apple trees that I grew from seeds a few years ago. I'm aware that apples don't breed true, so I don't know if the fruit will be particularly good.
I've also got three walnut trees that I planted last year from nuts. I don't yet know if they survived the winter.
This year I'm attempting to start grape vines from seeds taken from wild fox grapes.
Shouldn't there be some sort of after-moving ceremony?
With a kazoo band?
The branches veering exponentially to the left and to the right are leaving the middle behind. Awwww. It's America's avocado tree!
Last freeze date in central Ohio is May 15.
I had immediate success planting potato eyes, getting more potatoes.
It has been moved temporarily into quarantine. The roots were always enclosed in plastic, and the quarantine was mandatory and planned all along.
A few days back I saw a news item about some woman who was given an apple on a Delta flight from Paris as a snack, who put it in her carry on instead of eating it, who got a $500 fine for bringing fruit into the US. Keeping agricultural pests and diseases is a serious business.
it really ties the room together,
Like the Dud's rug?
John Henry
Also good luck with bean sprouts, though now I've forgotten the ritual's rules, and Kroger stopped carrying the seeds anyway.
Jupiter said...
Can avocados live outdoors in Michigan?
I had the same thought. We planted a couple of avocado trees from seed in our back yard, but that's in South Florida.
I don't think they'd do well in a frost, much less in a Midwestern winter. But good luck!
"A few days back I saw a news item about some woman who was given an apple on a Delta flight from Paris as a snack, who put it in her carry on instead of eating it, who got a $500 fine for bringing fruit into the US. Keeping agricultural pests and diseases is a serious business."
Yes. Exactly. I thought of that and almost put it in the post. Same rules for everybody, even the President of France and the nice lady with her snack.
For that matter, Florida has inspection stations to try to keep fruits and vegetables from other states out. I hear California is the same, but haven't experienced it first hand.
Ron Winkleheimer said...
"A few days back I saw a news item about some woman who was given an apple on a Delta flight from Paris as a snack, who put it in her carry on instead of eating it, who got a $500 fine for bringing fruit into the US."
Was it a white-girl apple, or a black-woman apple?
Bringing in blight infected Chinese Chestnut trees has led to the near extinction of the American Chestnut, but things are starting to look up.
http://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/revival-of-the-american-chestnut/
I've suffered through the exact same process for years as well.
Better equipment help for sure:
Caster
Assume you can get there through the Althouse portal
CA has always had those stations
Why didn't Delta get the fine? After all, they brought it in and planned to at least plant parts in a land fill?
I've seen reports that location of the few American Chestnut trees surviving in the wild are kept secret so they don't end up getting stolen or harmed due to tourists tramping through the forest.
Why didn't Delta get the fine? After all, they brought it in and planned to at least plant parts in a land fill?
That is a very good question that I do not have the answer for.
And then there is the blight of kudzu, which was deliberately brought in. And the horror of fire ants, introduced from South America via cargo ships into Mobile, Alabama in the 1930s. More recently, the Formosan termite entered the US via military ships in the 1940s.
"The Formosan subterranean termite is often nicknamed the super-termite because of its destructive habits due to the large size of its colonies and its ability to consume wood at a rapid rate. A single colony may contain several million individuals (compared with several hundred thousand termites for other subterranean termite species) that forage up to 300 feet (100 m) in soil. A mature Formosan colony can consume as much as 13 ounces of wood a day (about 400 g) and can severely damage a structure in as little as three months. Because of its population size and foraging range, the presence of a colony poses serious threats to nearby structures. Once established, Formosan subterranean termites have never been eradicated from an area."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formosan_subterranean_termite
The Drill SGT said...
Why didn't Delta get the fine? After all, they brought it in and planned to at least plant parts in a land fill?
You only get the fine if you try to take it through customs without declaring it. If you declare it, and it is forbidden, they confiscate it and hopefully dispose of it in a way that does not cause a problem.
Avacados can taking freezing temperatures?
We have two fiddle leaf ficus. I had one in California that grew all across a set of French doors and windows.
Here in Tucson, we have had to move one away from the south window as it gets too much sun. It is now in a bed room but needs to go to a bigger window.
I doubt an avocado would survive a frost. Citrus here in Tucson are damaged but survive.
We had a 14 degree frost about ten years ago that took the tops off mature citrus trees but the trunk survived.
I thought maybe there was, like, a theme about white people being black today, or black people looking white, shit like that.
But then this post is about Meade and an avocado tree, and that's pretty straight-up white. And Althouse taking a picture of Meade moving an avocado tree from indoors is, like, really fucking white and shit.
I bet Meade doesn't give a shit about shampoo.
-4CP
Killer Trees escaped from a lab in Brazil.
I remember my parents having an avacado growing competition. Neither hailed from appropriate climes, so why they thought themselves experts is beyond me. My mom would pour boiling water into his dish while he was at work; he'd put a variety of caustics in hers on the weekend -- I was the only one in the family who knew both sides were engaged in shenanigans. Neither seed grew. :-p
....one thing that's known here at Meadhouse is that there's a spring ritual of moving the avocado tree out onto the deck.
Grown from pits (plural?) That's a potted avocado grove, is it not? If it's really a singleton would you call it an abogado avocado?
Zeus does not appear to be pulling his weight in the first picture. @Meade, some strips of old carpeting or solid plastic sheets purchased from the hardware store would make things easier once you get the pot out the door and onto the deck.
@Althouse, lately it has not been “same rules for everyone,” has it? During the Obama years it seemed to be one set of rules for wealthy and well-connected Democrats, different rules for the rest of us. And so we got Trump.
An avocado tree has to be a hobby.
A few days back I saw a news item about some woman who was given an apple on a Delta flight from Paris as a snack, who put it in her carry on instead of eating it, who got a $500 fine for bringing fruit into the US. Keeping agricultural pests and diseases is a serious business.
I wonder how (or if) the airlines are required to dispose of uneaten fruit or wastes. An apple core could harbor a pest as easily as the whole fruit. If the gubmint is really on its toes everything brought from overseas and not eaten would be incinerated.
Great job, Meade! I bought a 4 ft tall avocado tree and planted it outdoors last fall.
But what will you do when the tree gets too tall for your ceiling? The Peterkin Family had an ingenious solution for their too-tall Christmas tree.
When I was a kid I planted a peach pit and it grew into a tree with the sweetest peaches I have ever tasted. It was in the back yard in Chicago for years. I think it was there when I left for college.
Original Mike said...Avacados can taking freezing temperatures?
The ritual is just Meade's way of saying that winter is over in Madison.
Meade looks like he's sporting a Clark Gable 'stache in the last photo.
True?
”The ritual is just Meade's way of saying that winter is over in Madison.”
Dying will be the tree’s way of saying “No, it’s not.”
Yo, Meade - does that produce? Is it from a Hass? It's lovely.
We can grow them in Florida, but disease will get them inexorably and quickly. Nothing to be done.
How many avacados will tree produce in one summer? It is lovely plant even if it doesn't produce fruit.
According to my mother-in-law avocado trees are supposed to be year on/year off for fruit, but our Hass has been producing avocados seemingly nonstop for the last five years. All of our neighbors come over to grab them. I have twelve bagged up in my pantry that should be ripe by Mother's Day (brunch!).
The tree was in our front yard when we moved in fourteen years ago. If/when something happens to it I just might cry.
At least Macron didn't bring a French Poodle. And the Avocado tree brings back memories of every semi-hippie place I lived in Austin, Brooklyn and Colorado in the 70s. I must've germinated a dozen of these (always on a butcher block in the kitchen), and none ever came close to this tree. Maybe because I was moving so much.
" It is lovely plant even if it doesn't produce fruit. "
You need another avocado to pollinate it. It can just be in the neighborhood but I doubt there are many in Wisconsin.
That shirt is too big.
>>Keeping agricultural pests and diseases is a serious business
The Chileans are fanatics about this because of their agricultural industries. There are horror stories of people being detained and fined for entering with bag of trail mix or airline peanuts.
The advice on the web is "If you are going, don't enter with ANY food at all. Not even a cracker."
“a Clark Gable 'stache”
Ha ha. A funny illusion now the you point it out.
I do the same thing every spring with two massive philodendrons that we've had for over 30 years.
They're not as tall as your avocado, but they're stilling quite a lug.
Why didn't Delta get the fine? After all, they brought it in and planned to at least plant parts in a land fill?
I would guess she didn't declare it on the entry form.
* * *
One mystery remains unsolved. How do Melania's high heels not sink into the verdant turf?
@Henry,
One mystery remains unsolved. How do Melania's high heels not sink into the verdant turf?
"Yo' mamma is so fat that every time she wears high heels & walks in the yard, she strikes oil!"
DanTheMan said...
There are horror stories of people being detained and fined for entering with bag of trail mix or airline peanuts.
When I went to Cancun, I declared the bag of trail mix I had brought along as travel snacks. They let me keep it. Keeping it was not worth the wait in line induced by declaring it. I should have chucked it before getting to customs.
I'm glad Meade had the dog there to provide that special canine close observation assistance.
Impressive tree.
It's nice to have a man around the house.
Yo, Meade - does that produce?
My question, too.
I'm glad Meade had the dog there to provide that special canine close observation assistance.
Emotional support animal.
I hope they do a better job replanting the Macron tree. They didn't allow for the settling of the dirt below the root ball, so the pot's soil level would end up below the existing soil's, which most plants don't like. A problem very rarely addressed in planting instructions.
Zeus seems quite proud of his contribution to the "annual avocado tree relocation event". If I was on twitter I'd send to "we rate dogs" with at least a 12/10 rating.
"It's nice to have a man around the house."
I apologize for my antediluvian sexist comment. It happens unconsciously. To rephrase, "It's nice to have a studly "person" around the house who can fix things for me.
That's the same thing the Big Lebowski said about his rug - tying the room together.
That was the Dude who said that, Pee-Pee. The Big Lebowski was not the Dude.
Original Mike said...
Avacados can taking freezing temperatures?
Yes, they can. Light frosts. But I don't think we'll see temps in the 30's here again until mid October. Still, I'd wait until May 15 to put in your basil and tomatoes. They resent sub 45 F.
soak soy beans or mung beans to get bean sprouts
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