Fruit tree - Avocado

What do you expect when you grow a fruit tree?
It is kind of rhetorical question, isn’t it? Of course, we all expect to get what we pay for when we buy a fruit tree. We especially hope to get what it is said in the label and photo. However, from our experience, sometimes things turn out to be different from the photo and label. The worst part is we have to wait for a few years of hard work to find out that it wasn’t what we paid for.

The story began 7 years ago, my husband (Bo) bought a Hass avocado tree, according the photo and name on the label, from one of major nurseries near our place. It started to flower a few years later but did not fruit and we almost chopped it down.  A couple of years later, it started to bear fruit. We were so excited, yay, we have our own avocado, especially our kids because they love avocado very much. When the fruit got bigger we had a closer look and realized that they don’t look like Hass, What? Not Hass? So, what it is? He said don’t know and have to wait until taste it. My goodness, got to wait again for few more months. Then harvesting time came and it was time to taste it, oh….oh..no…not so great news, it isn’t Hass. Bo was quite upset. What are we going to do with it? We can’t really return to the nursery and get a refund, can we? I guess we can if we had its receipt. Moreover even if we had the most that we could get is a refund for the tree and we can’t do much about the tree, chop the tree???? Grow another one, have to wait for another 4-5 more years? How are we going to trust the nursery again? Well, sometimes, it is what it is, we have to accept it and keep it. Bo has a philosophy, actually he’d learned from a children book that he read for Sarah, our youngest daughter. The book said that even you try the food that you don’t like, keep eating it for five days in a row, you eventually will like it. Yah, actually, the avocados are looking good, it is still avocado, just not what we expected - Hass avocado.

The story hasn’t end yet. See, Bo has never given up. One day when I was away he started his garden plan and secretly planed two more avocado trees….what can I said, we’ve got to wait for a few more years to tell you the story. To be continued…