Agriculture Plants from Pips (Pits): How to grow a garden / orchard from kitchen scraps

I have added to my green patch library, a book, authored by Holly Farrell, called "Plants from Pips"


.Book Review: RHS Plants From Pips and The Little Book of Hygge

The book explores comprehensively the propagation of different fruits, and berries from kitchen scraps. The book includes specific propagating techniques for each plant, care and maintenance, and a section on pests and diseases. This is a good way of getting kids interested in growing different kinds of yummy fruits inexpensively.

 

I can get avocado and lemon seeds to sprout but have never had success with a cherry pit or an apple. I have always wanted to try a berry seed, like blackberry but am thinking that organic would be the best. I know that @Gopherman has had great success sprouting things he has bought in the store.

 

Am away from the book at the moment, but from memeory, cherry pips(pits) require a low temperature to start germination....for those who can't do that, because they have cherries out of season, the germination can be forced by placing the cherries in their growing medium inside a refrigerator for a while.

 

So cherries have to be cold stratified before germination? I bought pawpaw seeds from...it was either Bountiful Gardens or Horizon Herbs(now called Strictly Medicinal), and I didn't follow the instructions to nick the shell coating, thinking I didn't need to, and as a result I had no germination.

In an unrelated mainly tangent, this reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes story The Five Orange Pips...

 

hmmm... now im going to have to try the lemon seed trick. Ive never been able to get them to sprout... thanks @chelloveck ... I do love a garden challenge

 

A lot depends upon how plant seeds germinate naturally.....the trick is to emulate that sufficiently to trick the seed into germinating on demand as it were. A number of Australian native plants require fire or smoke to kick off germination.

I have had mixed success with getting fruiting plants to grow from seed....I'm hoping that studying the techniques in the referenced book might improve the success rate.

 

I have never heard of smoke being used for germination. That is so interesting, actually quite perplexing. Fire is heat but smoke?

 

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Germination - Illinois Steward - University of Illinois Extension



I'm not aware of any domesticated fruit / vegetable varieties that depend on smoke priming as a propagation, however, some species of Australian bush tucker do germinate better in environments where firestick farming is prevalent.