Growing Loofa From Seeds

I'm growing loofas and I"m doing more experiments. I had 12 loofa seeds soaked overnight. Using my 12 compartment seed trays, I placed 6 seeds in the seed starter and the other 6 in a paper towel. The seed tray is outside in a makeshift greenhouse while the paper towel is in a plastic bag on a warm surface (the top of my cable box). We'll see an about a week or so which one is faster.

Growing Asparagus From Seed

I'm doing a little experiment with growing asparagus. Last night I soaked 12 seeds in water. Today I planted 6 of them in seed starter and the other 6 in a wet paper towel. We'll see which one is faster and if it makes any difference.

Growing Apricot From Seeds

My neighbor has an apricot tree. Every year she let's us come over and pick as many apricots as we want. There's always too many to go around. This year I saved some pits and Trevor and I are going to grow them. Before I get into details there's no guarantee that the seeds will produce apricots. My plum tree is right behind, back to back from the apricot tree. The apricot flowers bloomed just before the plums but there was an overlap so there is a chance the seeds are of plucots (apricot and plum hybrid). We'll know in 3 to 5 years.

I found 2 methods of growing apricots on the Internet so it's experiment time.
First step is to crack the pits with a hammer or nut cracker. I used a hammer. I found putting a pit on it's side and hitting the edge works best.
We have 18 seeds so 9 of them will be put in between a moist paper towel in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. The other 9 are in a jar with moist soil in the refrigerator. The seeds need a 30 day stratification period so after 30 days in the fridge we will check for sprouting.

Granny Smith Apple Time

We have a total of 13 Granny Smith apple seeds (not including the already sprouted one) and today we starting the whole planting process. Just like with the previous 2 seeds we placed them in a folded moist paper towel and placed them in a plastic bag. Since we got such a high germination rate with the Gala apples in room temperature, we're going to leave the seeds at room temperature. The Gala apples started sprouted in a week so it shouldn't take that long for the Granny Smith.
As for the Granny Smith apple seed that was already sprouted, it is doing quite well. We'll have updated photos up soon.
Something I have noticed so far with all our apples. They have all gone through the stratification process. Maybe not directly as seeds but definately as the apple. When we bring the apples home they go straight into the fridge. So in a few months Trevor and I will be trying a different experiment, "Is Stratification Absolutely Necessary For Apples?" In August or September we will be going to a nearby apple farm and picking apples directly from the tree. We are going to make sure they don't get refridgerated.

Update: Loquats

The loquat pits have sprouted and have been planted. We had 9 pits and all 9 pits sprouted. Unforunately 3 of the roots broke because they got attached to the paper towel or because it was too fragile. We found a clear 6 compartment box which we planted the the 6 remaining pits in. Since the box is clear we'll be able to track the root growth and progress better.


Loquat pits germinated

Gala Apple Seeds Germinating REALLY Well

So 12 days ago we decided to see if gala apples could germinate in room temperature, apparently they can. So far out of the 16 seeds we placed in the paper towel, 11 have germinated. In the remaining 5, 2 seem to be at the start of germination. This is far more than the 30% I was told to expect.



Gala Apple seeds that have germinated

Just like the Fuji apples, we have another mold problem. The fungicide seemed to delay it but didn't stop it. So we choose 9 of the strongest seeds, starting off with the ones that have green, then the ones with the longest roots, and we planted them in the remaining 9 compartments of the 12 compartment seed tray. As for the remaining 7, we changed paper towels, soaking it with fungicide again, and placed them there. Doing my online research, I was told that it would take 4 to 6 weeks for apple seeds to germinate and there would be a 30% germination rate. At the rate things are going, it's been almost 2 weeks and I have an almost 70% germination rate. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I will keep the remaining seeds in the paper towel for the next 2 to 4 weeks (To complete the 4 to 6 week cycle) to see how many of them grow.

Kiwis and Apples

Kiwis
Last week I was quite surprised on how many of the kiwis have sprouted. Well this week, most of the seeds had their first leaves.




Germinated kiwi seeds

They will continue to grow inside the greenhouse seed tray until the roots get too crowded or the plants get too big.

Apples (Fuji)
The apple seed that already sprouted is starting to grow it's third and forth leaves. In another compartment another seed has sprouted and is in the beginning stages of growing more leaves. Apparently it is the compartment where we placed 2 seeds. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the other seed is also growing.


Apple seeds growing


The next apple seeds we will be planting are Gala apples. This time they will not be place fridge. They will be placed between wet paper towels in a plastic bag but at room temperature.

Growing Citrus From Seeds

The citrus Trevor and I will be experimenting with are lemons, limes, oranges, mandarins, tangerines, and grapefruits.

3 weeks ago we went out to eat at a local restaurant. We ordered water and hot tea. My water came with a lemon wedge and so did Trevor's tea. Both lemons had seeds so we carefully picked them out and wrapped them up in a napkin. We got 6 usable seeds total.
A few days later we washed them and planted them in my greenhouse seed tray. Because of the sugar content of fruit, they were given a spray of fungicide every few days. We put them in a sunny window and waited. Today during our watering we noticed that one of the lemon seeds had germinated.




Sprouted Lemon seed

Today we also decided to plant our mandarin and orange seeds.
Most of the mandarins and oranges grown in my area are seedless but we were able to obtain one good mandarin seed, and 5 good orange seeds. We believe the oranges to be Valencia oranges. In the remaining 6 compartments of the greenhouse we planted the orange and mandarin seeds using the same process as the lemons.
They say it takes 1 to 4 weeks for citrus seeds to grow so we'll keep you updated.
In the mean time, we are currently collecting grapefruit and tangerine seeds. We seem to be getting a lot more of these seeds than we had with the lemon so we'll be running a few experiments to see which method grows faster.

Growing Cherries From Seeds

Our supermarkets are now flooded with cherries so we are going to start growing cherries. We will be trying several methods of growing cherries to see which one is the fastest.
Obtaining pits is simple. Just eat a few cherries and save the pits. Make sure you wash the pits very well and not leave any fruit residue. The sugars can cause molding and fungus.
Outside
Using our 12 compartment seed trays, using potting soil, 6 compartments have pits, the other 6 compartments contain cherry seeds. We cracked several pits open with hammers to obtain the seed. Unlike previous seeds, they are not inside a greenhouse. Doing some research online, I have found that the greenhouse is too hot for the cherry and may harm it.



Seed tray with cherry pits and seeds. One side is pits, the other side is seeds.


In The Refrigerator
One method I have been reading online is to get a jar or bag and fill it with moist soil and seeds. Keep the soil moist and leave it in the refrigerator for up to 90 days. During those 90 days check to see if any sprouting has occurred.
Trevor and I are using jars. One jar will have 20 pits, the other jar will have 20 seeds. We will see which one grows faster.



Me spraying the cherry tray

Growing Asparagus From Seed

Asparagus is one of those plants that produce vegetables for 10 to 20 years. They are usually grown from root crowns but I bought some asparagus seeds online and I'm going to give them a shot. I will have to wait an extra 1 to 2 years before I get asparagus but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I placed 6 asparagus seeds between a wet folded paper towel and I put the paper towel in a Ziploc bag. I had to wait up to 3 weeks before the seeds germinated. The first seed germinated within 2 weeks.

In my 12 compartment seed tray I placed the 6 seeds that I germinated between paper towels. As an experiment, I placed 6 seeds in the other 6 compartments. I'm just going to see if the paper towel speeds up the seeds compared to planting them directly in soil.

Growing Apples From Seeds

A few weeks ago we started our attempt to grow apple trees from seeds. Using a 12 compartment seed tray Trevor and I are going to plant 3 of 4 different types of apples: Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, and Arkansas Black.
A few weeks ago we bought some Fuji apples and took out the seeds. One seed in the apple already had a pretty long root coming out of it so we planted it in one of the compartments with seed starter. After doing some research online we decided to place the seeds in a wet, folded paper towel, in a plastic bag, in the refrigerator. It would take about 4 to 6 weeks before the seeds would germinate. Apple seeds also have a germination rate of 30% so we needed at least 10, luckily we were able to get 15. The seed that was already planted was also placed in the fridge.

Well 3 days ago we came across a problem, mold. There were little black spots of mold growing all over the paper towel. Apparently we hadn't washed all the sugar and apple parts off the seeds. We doused the paper towel in fungicide and sprayed some more in the bag. Since the already planted seed had shown no progress, we decided to remove the already planted seed from the fridge to a sunny window. A greenhouse was also placed on top.

Today the mold problem was worse than before. Luckily 3 of the seeds had already shown promising growth. One had a significant root, another showed the beginnings of a root, while a third showed the beginnings of a root and leaves. As we went to get the apple seed tray we noticed that the seed had already sprouted leaves. Quite a bit of growth after 3 days.





Apple plant

The seed that had a significant root was placed in a compartment while the other 2 were put in the same compartment. If both seeds grow one will be pulled out.

Today we also decided to start some pear seeds. Pears are in the same category as apples so they will be planted the same way. We did make one modification. Instead of soaking the paper towel in water, we soaked the paper towel in our homemade fungicide. The fungicide is 99% water anyway. Hopefully this time we won't have a mold problem.




Native Apple Tree 20 Seeds - Be Johnny Appleseed -Malus