Growing Peaches From Seed

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by William D. Adams
You can grow delicious peaches on your own trees that you start from seeds.

Growing peaches from seed can save you big bucks when you learn to grow peaches, apricots, and nectarines from seed. Growing fruit trees from seeds is remarkably easy on you and your wallet! 

Most fruit trees are best grown from grafted trees that cost about $25 to $35 each. But with peaches, nectarines and apricots, you can cut your cost to zero by growing fruit trees from seeds.

Because cross-pollination between varieties produces variable results, apples and some other fruit trees are usually not grown from seeds. (Instead, cuttings or buds of the best varieties are grafted onto rootstocks to produce trees that bear fruit just like the parent tree’s.) But the almond-like seeds in pits from peaches, nectarines and apricots do a good job of carrying on the desirable traits of their parents. You can simply sprout and grow a seed from a great-tasting specimen, and you have a good chance of sinking your teeth into sweet, juicy fruit from your own tree in only three to five years.

Summer is the best time for growing fruit trees, because you can seek out mid- or late-season varieties grown in your region. The best seeds come from fully ripe fruit. Avoid seeds from early maturing varieties because their seeds may not develop enough to sprout. Locally grown varieties are more likely to prosper in your garden compared to varieties grown a thousand miles away, and looking for likely candidates is tasty fun! Eat lots of peaches from farm stands and farmers markets, and save the pits from those that taste like peach heaven. And if you live where you can get local apricots and nectarines, you can try growing them from seeds too.

  • Updated on May 17, 2023
  • Originally Published on Apr 28, 2008
Tagged with: apricot, fruit tree from seed, growing fruit trees, nectarines, Peachtree, starting trees from seed
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