Diary of my peach tree growing

I stopped by the store this morning and saw they had gotten in some different peaches. These were yellow cling and they were delish and juicy!! So I cracked the hulls open and got the kernels into some damp potting soil with a generous dose of worm casings. They went into a plastic ziplock baggie and into the fridge butter compartment. I'll be checking them in about 6 weeks. The picture shows what I have. Should this be a bigger baggie? More potting soil? It's about as wet as a compost pile, damp but ya can't hardly squeeze a drop out. Mostly I'm concerned air might be an issue with it rolled up like that. Can anyone weigh in please to ease my mind? I'd sure think some real nice thoughts about you!

As luck would have it, the store I got my tasty peaches also had some nectarines that are scrumptious! So, I cracked the pits open, put the kernels in some damp potting soil just like I did the peach pits. I found a box to put all the baggies in so marked the nectarine bags and put them in the reefer. Mid July is the target date for roots to appear. I'm so stoked!!!

The peach pits I've encountered from this batch are breaking open to expose the kernel with no effort whatsoever. Seems like it's popped open inside once the peach is ripe. I bought 6       peaches and 6 nectarines. I'll buy more as they get them in.

I've also got some native plum and pear cuttings trying to root. I'll have more fruit than I'll know what to do with. I'll continue to plant fruit trees across the top of my mountain as long as I can.

OK, I got 6 peach and 6 nectarine pits in the fridge doing the stratification thing. I'll be checking them the first part of July. My plums and pears are still rooting. Yesterday I bought some Granny Smith apples. They're still a bit green so I'll give them a few days to sweeten up. I bit into the first one yesterday, I shuttered uncontrollably and one eye involuntarily squeezed shut it was so tart. Yea, we'll wait a day or six...
We've gotten over three inches of rain this week. Good thing I'm up fairly high and have decent runoff and draining.

I've read of people cracking peach and apricot seeds to plant the kernels, but I planted them intact and it worked just fine. I packed them in soil in containers and kept them damp all winter, and sowed them out in the garden in late winter. I got plenty of germination, eough to make me happy (since they're so easy to collect, I'd sown a lot more than I need trees).

However, the cherries I did the same way had 0 germination from about 50 seeds, which were three completely different sources from 3 regions on 2 continents.

Curious to know how you both got on with growing from seed?  Any progress? Thanks in advance :)  

Peaches are easy to grow from seed and will bear at two to three years old.   The squirrels plant them here, so I have peaches all over the place.  I originally had a yellow freestone and it crossed with the Cherokee white,  and now have lots of cling yellow, all delicious.  Climate iffy here for peaches, usually too wet when they ripen and they rot.  Keeping them pruned out in the center so that ventilation is good helps, as well as plenty of calcium/phosphorous and compost tea sprayed on.  

Jules Silverlock wrote:Curious to know how you both got on with growing from seed?  Any progress? Thanks in advance :)  

My peaches and apricots from seed are doing great! Still no germination from cherry seeds.

My first and best peach tree was a seed I pushed into a flowerpot in 2018, and planted outside in 2019. It produced about 15 or 20 fruit in 2021, and over a hundred in 2022 (after I had to thin off about 2/3 of them because there were hundreds all packed in together on the branches). They were a bit small and very late, but wow! Delicious and juicy! You had to lean forward to protect your shirt and shoes. I made preserves and didn't have to add sugar to make it sweet enough.

I've got 9 more peach trees from seed a year younger than the first, that I was hoping would all produce a least a little fruit to taste this year in 2023. Most of them did flower, but we got late snow so there's poor fruit set. The oldest tree has only 2 fruits per branch so I'm curious to see if that drastic thinning will make them bigger or earlier ripening than last year. At least one of the younger trees has a couple of fruits set: I want to taste the fruit from all these trees because some of them are from seeds of local peach trees that, frankly, have no flavor. So if some are crummy, I'll graft onto them.

And I've got 4 apricot trees from seed also sowed in 2019 and then planted out in 2020. They didn't even flower yet this year in 2023, but in any case the late snow prevented all fruit set on my one bigger grafted apricot, and on all the apricots in the village I'm in.

I've got 2 apple trees from seed that are much smaller than the 4 grafted apple trees I brought in.

Rebecca, it was the same with my peach tree in Bulgaria. Huge crop in 2022, amazing peaches. It was my first autumn there and I wasn't set up for preserving so most were given away or buried. Loads of flowers this spring, but a later snow and a rainy early spring mean there are very few peaches this year. The summer so far is extremely hot and dry. Like you, I'll be interested to see what the few remaining peaches are like. Definitely only enough to eat fresh, none of the preserving I hoped to do this year!

I did try planting a bunch of whole fruit where I wanted more peach trees, but unfortunately someone else weedwhacked the garden while I was away and got the seeding peaches. I'm hoping they developed enough roots to grow back like the wild plum seedlings. No matter how often I cut those, they grow back!

Michael, did your peaches and nectarines grow?