My video on germinating peach pits has garnered almost 30,000 views since I posted it back in July:
Since posting that instructional video, I have received multiple comments and emails from people thanking me for showing them how to grow their own peaches from seeds.
My friend Amanda, who is NOT obsessed with me at all, sent me these two pictures recently of her peach sprouting success:
Some years ago I discovered in some dusty corner of the internet that peach pits require cold stratification to germinate.
I put this knowledge to the test with great success, starting about 50 peach pits I found beneath an abandoned and squirrel-ravaged Tropic Beauty peach growing a few miles from my old place in North Florida.
I did this despite the fact that there are hordes of small-minded gardeners in the world who take great pleasure in lecturing everyone about the utter worthlessness of starting fruit trees from seed.
These people are wrong. And boring. And stupid. And they smell.
Here’s a video I did showing some of my seed-grown peach trees in fruit:
And here are two pictures of some of the delicious fruit I got as a result of germinating peach pits in my very own refrigerator:
In their SECOND year, my two seedling peach trees produced about five gallons of fruit. They continued to massively outproduce the grafted peach trees I planted before them, plus they grew with more vigor.
Growing fruit trees from seed isn’t a dumb thing to do. It’s a great thing to do. It’s a YUGE, high energy thing to do.
Sometimes the “experts” aren’t really experts. They’re just people who say things adamantly because they’ve heard other people say the same things.
Heck with that.
Better Gardening Through Experimentation isn’t just a film I made… it’s my modus operandi.
Thanks for the pictures, Amanda, and may your peaches grow and produce abundantly.
Finally, here’s how you germinate peach pits:
Have fun!
15 responses to “Germinating Peach Pits is Easy: Check Out These Pics”
Yes, it does work indeed, pretty well.
I use this method for Hablitzia tamnoide and other plants that need to feel the cold before germinating.
I could put them outside too, but mices would find them, so…
Thanks for this tips and all the others. ;-)
Congratulations – you beat me! That’s a plant I never heard of before. Had to look it up.
And you are very welcome.
Never imagined I could beat you on any edible plant David… ;-)
Don’t bother growing it, it’s much too hot for it, even in Florida.
Heh. Thanks.
There are definitely some gaps in my foraging knowledge. A few years back I hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail in the fall. I figured I’d find plenty of things I could eat. I was wrong – there were lots of plants there in the mountains but many of them were outside my knowledge. After seeing that, I bought Botany in a Day (http://amzn.to/2j4lkG7) to try and do better on patterns, even if I couldn’t nail down particular species.
Good book, though the title is truly impossible.
I took a MOOC on botanic last year with the hope I would then be able to eat the weeds.
It hasn’t been the case since then, I still can’t tell edible from inedible. :-(
Someone just told me that my peaches wouldn’t be true to the fruit. I just said “we’ll see”.
No, they won’t be *exactly* true. This is a feature, not a bug. They’ll be “Amanda” peaches, rather than Tropic Beauty or Florida King or whatever.
Every seed-grown peach we grew yielded good fruit. Not a single one was bad. And we had at least 8 bear.
I just cracked open 6 peach pits, and only one of the kernels was not shriveled up. Will the other 5 be ok, or do they need to be a certain size and shape to germinate?
The shriveled ones were likely not pollinated and won’t sprout.
I just put three kernels from locally grown peaches in some potting soil and stuck them in the fridge. We’ll see how this goes. Maybe I’ll get mutant overlord peaches bent on Earth’s destruction or maybe something edible; edible would be cool I guess.
They’ll be awesome.
I started my seeds about 3 weeks ago in moist paper towel in the dark (as I saw in a different video, before finding your video)…the seed has split, but the roots aren’t developing at all…do you have any advice.
Usually it takes about 2-3 months for mine to sprout in the fridge.
Mine sprouted roots without cold stratification in the dark, warm pantry, in damp paper towel in an open, thick, ziplock bag. David, I tried to email you but I’m not sure if I have the correct email. I have a couple questions. Can you please let me know what your email is?
david@floridafoodforests.com