I recently started saving all the seeds from the fruits I consume. But I don't know if I can just put them in a pot and wait for them to grow. I live in an apartment so I dont have a yard, but I have a large terace were I plan to place them. I have diferent kinds, maybe someone can give me specific advice for each one... I don't know if I should soak them or even how long they take to grow.. these are the seeds I have up to now: lemon orange grapefruit tomatoes papaya green peper apple peach pear kidney and lentil beans I also put a potato and some garlic cloves in a pot with soil (seperately) remember these seeds are directly from the plant, I did not purchase the seeds from a store. so... is this alright?? will they grow? by the way... seasons don't really matter cause in Puerto Rico it summer all year long.
Lemon, orange, & grapefruit, tomato, beans, potato and garlic should all come up right away. green pepper may or may not, depending on how close the pepper was to turning red...The seeds might not be mature enough. Apple and pear are iffy, I've heard of people getting the seeds to come up, but I never had the luck to grow them from seed...and I've planted a lot of seed. The peach should come up eventually, you might ought to plant it outside. The thing about most of these fruit trees is they do not come true....To get an apple like the one that you ate requires grafting a limb from the parent tree to the seedling. You can plant 100 apple trees and only get one tree that produces fruit that you want to eat. The same is said to be true for oranges, lemons and grapefruit. But, don't let that stop you, they still make attractive trees.
I am going to say you probably won't have much luck with most of those plants in an apartment. A fruit tree will have to be larger than you can accommodate before it will produce fruit. Try the tomato.
thanx gardener!! even if the fruits aren't good to eat I'll enjoy the company of a beautiful tree. about living in an apartment... It's not a problem... I have a huge terace and I'm only renting... hopefully I will leave in a year or two, to a small country house with a big yard. I'm planing ahead I'll be checking every day to see if something has come up. I am optimistic!! wish me luck
Seed saving is a great option for some things. If you want "true to type" vegetables, then tomato, pepper/capsicum/chilli and beans will do fine. However, cucurbits (like cucumber, pumpkin etc) and your fruit trees will not make the fruit you expect. Also, seeds require a little preparation, and then the right temperature to germinate. You should clean and dry them out well, and then plant them out in warming (spring) soil. I can say that I have "accidentally" germinated dozens of veges and fruit trees because I compost all vegetable scraps/chicken straw/seeds from fruit from late summer through winter, and the compost is dug into the spring garden. Many peaches and apricots germinate strongly every spring, I have had a few citrus come through too, but I only keep tomato and pepper seedings. If you keep the fruit trees in a large pot for a while and they look strong, they'll be good for grafting on, and if you wait 4 years you can see if they have edible fruit on their own.
most grocery store fruits and vegetables are hybrids, and/or genetically engineered. They will not grow true from seed, even if the seeds are viable. The fruits were most likely grown on different rootstock, and if the seeds develop at all they will have very weak root systems and not fare well. Tomato seeds need to be fermented (or left inside rotting tomatoes) before they will sprout. The beans will probably grow really well, IF you inoculate them with nitrifying bacteria first (you can get bean inoculant at any feed and seed store). The garlic you have the best chance of growing and having a decent harvest. There are some grocery store fruits you can grow really well, though. Avocado and pineapple are two that my dad grew in his tiny apartment in NewYork, and in about ten years, they even produced fruit of their own!
