This may be a silly question

But I am curious. Now, since I was a lad, I have enjoyed planting and growing flowers, veggies, plants, ect. But tonight I find myself wondering: Have any of you had luck planting the seeds that are in fruit you buy in the produce section at the grocery store? Pulled the seeds out of a pear I ate tonight, and thought of planting them for the hell of it to see what happens. Would I be wasting my time?

Never had any luck except for watermelon, cantaloupe or pumpkins

Thanks for the reply. I never tried it before, so maybe I'll plant the seeds, and see what happens.

Don't just plant them rusty, you have to germenate them first. Lots of different ways to do that but one of the easiest is to put them between wet paper towels and then put the towels in a plastic container with the lid closed. Put the container in the window sill and let the sun shine on it. When the seeds sprout you are ready to plant them. Really, it's quite easy. Done it many times.

squerly said:

Don't just plant them rusty, you have to germenate them first. Lots of different ways to do that but one of the easiest is to put them between wet paper towels and then put that in a plastic container with the lid closed. Put the container in the window sill and let the sun shine on it. When the seeds sprout you are ready to plant them. Really, it's quite easy. Done it many times.

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Oh right, guess I didn't mention that. That was why I was wondring if it'd be a waste of time lol. Thanks, bud.

Trees are real hard to start from seed usually. Viney plants are pretty easy as a rule. Some things like to be planted at certain times of year no matter where you live.

muleman said:

Trees are real hard to start from seed usually. Viney plants are pretty easy as a rule. Some things like to be planted at certain times of year no matter where you live.

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Good info, I've always gotten my trees when they were already trees. Well I got the seeds in the wet paper towels and used a plastic sandwhich bag full of air. The only containers I have have solid color lids, so no light would be getting through.

Rusty Shackleford said:

Good info, I've always gotten my trees when they were already trees. Well I got the seeds in the wet paper towels and used a plastic sandwhich bag full of air. The only containers I have have solid color lids, so no light would be getting through.

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I'm not sure that the amount of light is important rusty. Although I may be wrong, I think it's more the warmth that comes from the light heating up the environment inside the plastic container. To be honest, I don't know that the light has didly to do with it. I've grown too many pot plants in my younger days, and many of them started out as seeds between two paper towels stashed away in a cabinet somewhere.

squerly said:

I'm not sure that the amount of light is important rusty. Although I may be wrong, I think it's more the warmth that comes from the light heating up the environment inside the plastic container. To be honest, I don't know that the light has didly to do with it. I've grown too many pot plants in my younger days, and many of them started out as seeds between two paper towels stashed away in a cabinet somewhere.

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LOL Well, I believe it's the light, warmth, and humidity for normal plants, which should be able to happen in an expanded bag (I blew it up like a baloon). You can grow pot in a friggin tube sock

Many fruit and vegetable seeds are infertile because they are hybrids but sometimes good seeds get thru... I've grown oranges, lemons and grapefruit. I've also grown southern yellow pine trees and bald cypress trees from seeds I found in the south. Yes it's a little difficult up here. They all lived in pots. The yellow pine are about 9 years old now and so's the lemon. The others died after a few years.

pixie said:

Many fruit and vegetable seeds are infertile because they are hybrids but sometimes good seeds get thru... I've grown oranges, lemons and grapefruit. I've also grown southern yellow pine trees and bald cypress trees from seeds I found in the south. Yes it's a little difficult up here. They all lived in pots. The yellow pine are about 9 years old now and so's the lemon. The others died after a few years.

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Well that gives me slight hope lol. Thanks, Pixie

sprout them, plant them. time'll tell. u can try, rite!

luvs said:

sprout them, plant them. time'll tell. u can try, rite!

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Right!

Once got an avocado seed to sprout and grow from a store bought avocado. It lasted a few years until the cold got it.

As Pixie said, some of the plants are hybrids and don't produce fertile seeds otherwise you can certainly grow plants from the seeds you gather yourself, especially if they are from heirloom varieties. Go for it. Sounds like an interesting experiment.

As Pixie and ETF said, many fruits and veggies are GMO. (look it up)

The stuff you get in the store is crap compared to just buying seeds and growing it yourself. Let's take tomatoes for example. What you get in the store has been modified to have a long shelf life (marketability), strong skin (so they can be piled deep without bruising)...

If you bought some heirloom tomato seeds and grew them yourself, they'll taste better but you won't have the GMO effects.

To give you an idea, I planted some heirloom tomato plants in my garden last year. In general, they weren't as "pretty" as their GMO counterparts but they tasted much better. Some weren't good enough to harvest so I let them lay in the garden. This year, I have over 400 tomato plants growing, that I didn't plant. They just popped out of the ground from the heirloom plants from last year. I looked yesterday and I already have over 2000 tomatoes that will be ready for harvest in the next week or two.

I also planted heirloom versions of other plants. I didn't plant any this year but have pumpkin, sunflower and cucumber growing in the garden.

Just buy some heirloom seeds and skip the GMO crap.