Four years ago we bought some various stone-fruit from the grocery and put the seeds in the fridge to germinate. We were renting at the time, and didn’t take care of the potted trees very well in the heat of summer and through our move. We also planted some in our previous Grocery Row Gardens, and were able to transplant them to the new ones. A few of the original seedlings survived and were planted here and there when we moved.
I thought the tree we planted in the Grocery Row Gardens was a peach, but it was a nectarine instead. Now it’s about 20′ tall and has small fruit all over it.
Here’s the first batch we brought into the house:
They are not beautiful, and they are a bit small, but they are delicious.
The tree has been remarkably healthy and needs a huge pruning to get it back down to the proper size for the space. Last year we let it go, and this spring it was covered in blooms – and then some of the blooms developed into fruit. Rachel was the first to notice that they weren’t fuzzy, like the fruits on the two peach seedlings a couple of rows over.
Nectarines are just peaches without fuzz, and I had forgotten what-all we had planted from the grocery.
What a nice surprise! Planting fruit trees from seed is a lot of fun, especially if you can’t remember what you planted.
Though I normally give talks on food forests and Florida gardening when I speak in the Sunshine State, in my next talk at the end of this month, I’ll be talking about why seed-grown fruit trees are so special.
As I wrote in yesterday’s newsletter:
We’ll cover grafting, varieties, hunting for genetic treasure, and the tricks that ensure germination success and fast production.
Sound crazy? Well, sure – many good ideas do. But I think you’ll love this presentation.
Along with my talk, we’ll have a huge plant sale along with multiple other food forest nurseries including the excellent Scrubland Farmz. We’ll have yams, witch hazel, sweet native plums, turmeric, comfrey, cassava and many, many other cool plants. There are also other speakers and workshops, plus time to answer your gardening questions.
If you can attend, visit the website and sign up. (I also just found out that the code SAVE20 gives you 20% off.)
Hope to see you there. And even if you can’t make it, at least try to plant some fruit tree seeds.
