Growing Pomegranates from Seed Naturally

Have you ever wanted to try growing pomegranates from seed and create your own new variety?

Then let's grow some new pomegranate varieties together!

So why grow pomegranates from seed when there are numerous "good" existing varieties?

Most of the modern pomegranates aren't adapted to my particular climate and also aren't cold hardy enough to survive here. Plus the pomegranates that I've gotten from the store have been nowhere near as good as the ones I've had from local growers.

Growing pomegranates from seed creates the possibility to create totally new varieties that may be more vigorous growers in your climate, more cold hardy, or match your specific taste preferences!

I hope to select for cold hardiness, excellent flavor, high vigor, productiveness, and disease and pest resistance.

I feel that maybe by selecting cold hardy pomegranates in my zone 7b and creating a lot of new varieties, that I can be of help to those trying to breed and grow them in zone 7a, zone 6 and maybe even beyond!, that they can use these higher cold hardy pomegranate seedlings to breed even higher cold tolerant pomegranates in their zones.

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This may not seem like much in these pictures, but I was extremely excited today to see a lot of the pomegranate seeds sprouting that I had direct seeded outdoors about a month ago. I had kept the seeds in the fridge over the winter.

These seeds were from a delicious local pomegranate that was growing just a few miles from me. It was 10 times better than any one I've had from the store (no unpleasant bitterness or off flavor), so I saved every single seed from it, and had to have planted about 100 or more.

I'm super excited that it was so delicious, productive, and extremely cold hardy in my area, with what appeared to be zero cold damage from the winter, it produced at least 20 fruits (probably more) which I felt was a lot for being only about 8 feet tall and probably three years old.

They said they got it from a nursery but couldn't remember the name of the variety. I meant to take a picture of it and thought I had, but I couldn't find any. It was kind of bland greyish peach colored on the outside with black dots (maybe some slight exterior fungus, but it didn't affect the inside) if my memory serves me correctly. The arils (seeds) were a deep reddish pink and very attractive and delicious looking. The flavor was extremely delicious with sweet and flavorful being the main things that came to mind, but it also had a pleasant and well balanced slight tanginess to it.

I'm very excited to see how these seedling turn out!

That's really cool!
My kids picked out some seeds to grow of a miniature pomegranate that supposedly will grow in a pot. Did you do anything special before planting them bedsides keeping them in the fridge over the winter?

I started a pull of Pomegranate seeds I have high hopes for, just planted less than a week ago. If/when they germ I'll post some pics. Your thread on growing apples from seed is the main reason I finally signed up for this forum although I haven't made it in to that one yet, I surely will be. I subscribed to your YT channel a while ago, post more videos!

Jenny Wright wrote:That's really cool!
My kids picked out some seeds to grow of a miniature pomegranate that supposedly will grow in a pot. Did you do anything special before planting them bedsides keeping them in the fridge over the winter?

Yeah just that, and planted them pretty shallow I think, then covered them with a chopped weed mulch that was growing where I planted them, kinda similar to straw. As I saw the first ones sprouting, I gently pulled back about half or two thirds of the mulch so more sunlight would reach the soil to encourage more germination. It seemed to help, and there are a ton sprouting now, and I've seen the first true leaves starting to form! I hope to post another picture of them soon.

I planted some another time indoors just a few days after I ate a pomegranate and they sprouted too. The pomegranate was probably in cold storage for a while before I bought it, so that may have stratified it some. I hope you and your kids' pomegranates do well! That's awesome you are doing that together.

Steve

Thombo Corley wrote:I started a pull of Pomegranate seeds I have high hopes for, just planted less than a week ago. If/when they germ I'll post some pics.

Yeah would love to see them!

Your thread on growing apples from seed is the main reason I finally signed up for this forum although I haven't made it in to that one yet, I surely will be.

That's awesome! Yeah I'd love to see those also if you plant some apple seeds. I have some new apple seedlings this year that I'm excited about that should be better adapted to my area, I'll try to post some photos of them soon.

I subscribed to your YT channel a while ago, post more videos!

Yes I've fallen behind on those recently. I hope to start making some more soon hopefully!

A lot of the seedlings have their first true leaves growing now as of May 1st, really excited to see how they do!

A lot more seeds have been continuing to sprout too. I may try to count them.

As of May 14, and 1 month old. Most have a few true leaves.

As of May 22. The seedlings are starting to pick up their growth speed as they are getting bigger and also with the hotter weather. The biggest ones are probably almost 3 inches tall now.

They all look super healthy. Really excited to see how they turn out!

I had last year three huge pomegranates with a very fruity taste.

I cut one in half and planted the seeds without cleaning the pulp off.

About 30 are now 2 meters and waiting to get moved to our new land building a part of the lower canopy in our planned food Jungle.
Unfortunately I have only pictures as they were 6 month old and started flowering.

Growing pomegranates from seeds are one of the easiest task to do and the flowers are so stunning..

I live in N. Ca. Zone 9 b. There was a huge pomegranate tree, it's more like a giant bush.  Who knows how old it is it was huge 27 years ago when we bought our house.  The kids were free to eat them, and often did while outside playing.
We have a long driveway with hedges on both sides we tried to keep watered.  One day I'm driving down the driveway and I say is that a pomegranate?  I don't remember there being one there.  Because there wasn't. Sure enough the kids, or critters planted a new tree.  It produces like crazy, and it's only care is to get watered a handful of times a year (with the drought, I don't water like I used to).
Good luck to all of you trying to grow a pomegranate tree. They take up a lot of space, but are beautiful, and tasty.

Those little pomegranate seedlings are so adorable. I always love the photos that come along with your posts.

I only have 3 1/2 acres, and the goats take up a good portion of that, so I have to be selective about what I plant. I did plant 3 named variety pomegranate trees I got at a nursery though. Maybe I will do plant seeds as well, though, next spring. We have a pretty long stretch of road frontage I'd like to screen off, due to noise from large trucks passing early in the morning. I was thinking blackberries, but I'll bet pomegranates would work even better, being larger and bushier.

Lila Stevens wrote:Those little pomegranate seedlings are so adorable. I always love the photos that come along with your posts.

Thanks Lila!

I did plant 3 named variety pomegranate trees I got at a nursery though. Maybe I will do plant seeds as well, though, next spring.

That would be neat, you could create some new varieties adapted to your area! If you do it, I'd love to see how they turn out! I've really enjoyed looking at the pomegranate seedlings and seeing how they are growing each week. (Even if they are a little more work than all of my other plants, since they are so tiny right now.)

We have a pretty long stretch of road frontage I'd like to screen off, due to noise from large trucks passing early in the morning. I was thinking blackberries, but I'll bet pomegranates would work even better, being larger and bushier.

That sounds like a good plan. I bet you could probably even do both! I let my blackberries grow up among my young fruit trees, and it's been working really well so far.

I harvested this tasty blackberry today actually from my food forest, the first of the year! It's growing up amongst a young apple tree.

Yes, that is true, I really don't have to pick just one, haha. Blackberries do great here, and I can get large quantities of root cuttings pretty cheap from a local nursery. Pomegranates are supposed to do well too, but of course a locally adapted variety could be even better. And there's no way I could afford to buy enough trees to stretch across all that frontage, so seeds seem a good way to go. They are gorgeous plants no matter what they end up producing.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:I live in N. Ca. Zone 9 b. There was a huge pomegranate tree, it's more like a giant bush.  Who knows how old it is it was huge 27 years ago when we bought our house.  The kids were free to eat them, and often did while outside playing.
We have a long driveway with hedges on both sides we tried to keep watered.  One day I'm driving down the driveway and I say is that a pomegranate?  I don't remember there being one there.  Because there wasn't. Sure enough the kids, or critters planted a new tree.  It produces like crazy, and it's only care is to get watered a handful of times a year (with the drought, I don't water like I used to).
Good luck to all of you trying to grow a pomegranate tree. They take up a lot of space, but are beautiful, and tasty.

That is awesome! How is the fruit from your volunteer tree? As good as the parent tree's fruit?

The pomegranate are wonderful and and tastes the same.  
I'm so jealous.  We love blackberries.  I grew up in Washington State, and everyone was always battling blackberries trying to keep them from taking over, I live in N. Ca.  and have to work hard just to keep them alive, I got my first blackberry a couple weeks ago, it was about 1/4 of the size of Steve's.  

Jen Fulkerson wrote:The pomegranate are wonderful and and tastes the same.  
I'm so jealous.  We love blackberries.  I grew up in Washington State, and everyone was always battling blackberries trying to keep them from taking over, I live in N. Ca.  and have to work hard just to keep them alive, I got my first blackberry a couple weeks ago, it was about 1/4 of the size of Steve's.  

I'd trade you some blackberries for some pomegranate fruit! 😂 I have to laugh at myself when I challenge myself to grow stuff like citrus and pomegranate and olives here in western WA because I'm not satisfied with just picking gallons and gallons of blackberries all summer long, for free, with no work on my part and no expense.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:The pomegranate are wonderful and and tastes the same.

That's really neat to hear they taste great and the same Jen!

I hope my seedlings are similar to the parent also.

I recommend reading "Pomegranate Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden". It is available on Amazon.

The author describes how he found much variation in pomegranates in Turkmenistan, where apparently radiation from the mountains caused these changes. Everything from prostrate forms to much more showy flowers.

A common variation that shows up in pomegranates is black fruit. In almost every place with a history of pomegranate cultivation, you see black pomegranates show up (I'm hoping to eventually cross some of these!). Perhaps you will end up with a black or variegated one!