I sprouted them in a kiddie/wadding pool. I screwed the kiddie pool to a skid so they are off the ground and I can move them easily with my skidsteer if I need to. I drilled a few 3/8" holes in the bottom for drainage. These pools are cheap and large in comparison to pots.
Something like this works well.
I also use kiddie pools with a single 3/8" hole drilled in the side about 2" from the bottom for potted grafts. It really does conserve water and I can just add water to the pool. Water wicks up into the soil in the pots.
I have one peach tree sprouted in 2019 which is fruiting for the second time this year. It had 4 peaches last year, a dozen or so this year. Late freezes the year before prevented any fruit. It tastes very similar to the fruit stand peaches we had purchased that I saved the pits from. Cracked them out of the pit and stored them in the fridge in a plastic bag (completely dry) until spring and then just stuck them in some dirt. I have some nectarine seedlings started the same way this spring.
I have some peach and plum seeds started also. I didn’t crack the pit to remove the seeds. I just stuck the whole pit in soil and left outdoors over winter (zone 7a). This spring the plums sprouted, and are growing like crazy.
I’m assuming that removing the seed from the pit simply speeds up the process.
I think mother nature is more variable than that to give it more chances of life. What I mean is, I throw many pits of peach and nectarines in the spring into pots. From all the stuff my family gets at the grocery store. I plant them out about 20 to a grow bag. And graft them over when they’re two years old.
One thing I’ve noticed is there’s always a few that are out early on the plant season, I put them in the pot. And then 80 or 90% of them don’t sprout till the following spring after they’ve had a winter outside in the grow bags.
Here is an example of my Family‘s first peaches of this year that we ate. I put about 25 pits into this pot two weeks ago. Look at three or four have fresh sprouted. The rest won’t sprout till next spring after the winter chill. Kinda neat.
so your grocery store peach pits, planted directly into soil, already sprouted and grew that much in a couple months?
also, wouldnt grocery store peaches come from south america somewhere this time of the year and using them as stock might not do well up here?
Bag said California grown. Costco peaches first bags of the year.
Those were planted maybe 21 days ago. Sprouted maybe 14-15 days ago. The spring pit sprouts usually grow to at least 4 ft. Then they seem to stop stretching and thicken up. The shortest one is about 4”, and the tallest one maybe 6” tall.
I have been doing this for 5 or 6 years now. Usually get 50 sprouts and graft them all over to known trees. Then sell them at the pta plant sale. Lately I have been upping my sprout counts. I really like using them as rootstock. Just have to let them grow two years to be thick enough.
i wonder if the others dont come up as fast is because they are having a harder time getting out of the pit. wonder if removing the pit might make them all get going. i was under the impression they needed a long stratification.
Tried that de shelling, and they seemed to still sprout later.
That’s is exactly why 90% of them do not sprout until the next year. After winter stratification. They sit all spring and summer and winter and then germ the next spring. We are saying the same thing gromie.
The odd ball ones are oddballs because I just ate them. No stratification, thru the pit. And bam sprout. They broke the soil 7 days after throwing them in the soil. I would bet the other 21 do not wake up for 10 more months. These are all sister seeds from the same batch of fruit.
Like a Jack salmon. Out of synch with its population.
I’ve done some stratifying in the fridge and it worked fine and it sounds like it’d be fun for your kids to grow in clear cups like @MSchiedow suggested.
Alternatively, I’m in 6b (VA) and I just planted them outside. I took a bunch of pits (drops from my trees and some from farm stand peaches) and shoveled a ditch about 3-4” deep. Stepped on dropped peaches, tossed whole pits in without cracking or anything. Covered them and waited till spring.
I thought this method wasn’t working till I realized the deer were eating them preferentially. When I put up fencing around the area, loads of them started coming up.
I’m excited reading this thread because It seems like many have got trees with fruit they’re happy with growing from a peach pit - or I could graft!
That seems like so many for that pot- what size? is that because only half will end up sprouting? It’s not a huge mess untangling the roots?
Most sprout. It’s a few more than usual count per pit. But I am upping my numbers. The dwarfing from root binding is helpful. Then, I graft all the sprouts to one type of prunus. I don’t break them out until they have been top worked and wintered another year. Proven takes, and then I cut them out and give them their own pot and tag. If I do it dormant they don’t skip a beat.
Very cool. What size bags? And, I noticed all the leaves. You leave them out for winter with the leaf insulation?
I wonder if stratification outside would work where I live. I live in NW Florida and we get between 500-600 chill hours on average and then the soil would insulate it a little as well. Also, just curious about the grafting process some. So it appears you are grafting to the seed grown rootstock, I thought peach trees are normally grafted to other rootstocks not only for size control but disease resistance as well. So am I right to assume that the seed grown rootstock would be standard size with no disease resistance?
Also, I have some naturally miniature peach tree varieties and was wondering if once they start fruiting can I use the seeds I get from them to grow and then graft to that rootstock and make whatever variety I graft to them be miniature or dwarfed?
I have no experience to answer this question. But, would seem to reason that the genetic dwarf nectarines would growing dwarfing rootstock but whatever is grafted would not be miniature since that is a genetic trait not in the scion?
