Free Seeds! How to harvest seeds from your groceries

The actual issues around avocados from pits are that 2 slightly different varieties planted near one-another cross pollinate and thus produce more heavily. There are very few varieties in commerce, so better to sprout a wrinkly skin plus a smooth one, and plant both.

You can always graft for earlier bearing, or tastier fruit. I'd graft rather than wait.

Beth Bauer wrote:On avocados:
My kids love sprouting the seed with toothpicks over water, but that’s as far as any I’ve ever started got. Then I read somewhere on the Internet (so you know it’s true) that most seeds from grocery store avocados will never produce a plant that bears fruit.  Has anyone had any luck ever sprouting their own fruitful avocado tree?

On apple seedlings:
I'm randomly tossing some seeds into hedgerows. I've certainly appreciated foraged fruit from wayside trees, so I'm adding some for future generations. Other fruit too. You tend to get something with qualities from its parents - so I favour seeds from my own apples over the mediocre bought jobs.
To encourage earlier fruiting, it apparently helps to encourage downward growing - to this end I've paired up seedlings and bent each of their leaders down, and tied it against its buddy's stem, pruning off unnecessary upward twigs. Only done that this spring, so a while before I'll see results. This technique apparently applies to all trees and climbers - it tells the plant it's got high enough.

With bulk seeds sold for food there is no guarantee of viability so test a small batch for sprouting before committing to a large planting.  The untested seeds in this video did not sprout although previous purchases did,

I have planted beans, peas, potatoes & Garlic from the  groceries, with no problems.

Under one of the apple trees growing in the allotment garden I found some apple seedlings. Yes, I know some of the apples were fallen down, and I did not pick them up. That's what happens then.

Because I don't want all apple trees to grow at the same spot, I carefully removed them from there. They are in a container now. When they'll have grown a little taller  they'll be transplanted to a nice spot ...  I know Paul wouldn't approve of that, because the 'deep root' is harmed by transplanting the seedlings...

I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

I've wanted to try this for a long time.  I've actually had a number of 'volunteer' plants that were very successful:  

- a cherry tomato plant showed up in my raised bed, and I don't even EAT cherry tomatoes, much less plant one. Have no idea where it came from.  But the tomatoes were good.

- a banana squash volunteered in my compost this year.  I had grown banana squash last year, but I don't remember throwing one out there.  So I just let the vine grow on it's own.  I never even watered it.   It grew and grew, but very few flowers, and I didn't see any squash on it.  I figured I'd have to wait to see what kind it was.   As it grew over the fence, the deer from the meadow enjoyed the leaves, stripping that part of the vine completely.  The rest of the vine kept growing.   I finally saw ONE squash, squished between the fence post and the compost bin, and figured out it was a banana squash.  We tore down part of the fence to make room for a greenhouse, and suddenly almost all of the leaves were stripped in a single night.   But there was another squash starting.   I just now harvested the first one, and will be trying it out.  The fact that I never watered it makes me think this will be a perfect landrace candidate.

- an elderberry volunteered next to my raised bed.  No idea where it came from.  We do have 2 elderberry trees on our property, and a ton in the area in general, but even the closest one is well over 600 yards away.   I finally got around to trying to dig it out so I could transplant it, but the taproot went way under the raised bed, so it broke off.  I stuck it in soil anyway, but it was dying.  I cut off a section that was 'not quite hardwood' and stuck that section into water.   It's sprouting leaves!   But no roots yet.

I have an ongoing  crop of garlic that started from grocery store garlic.  I've tried grocery store potatoes with varying degrees of success.  When I purchased actual 'seed potatoes' I had a much better crop.

Loretta Liefveld wrote:I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

I've wanted to try this for a long time.  I've actually had a number of 'volunteer' plants that were very successful:  

- a cherry tomato plant showed up in my raised bed, and I don't even EAT cherry tomatoes, much less plant one. Have no idea where it came from.  But the tomatoes were good.

- a banana squash volunteered in my compost this year.  I had grown banana squash last year, but I don't remember throwing one out there.  So I just let the vine grow on it's own.  I never even watered it.   It grew and grew, but very few flowers, and I didn't see any squash on it.  I figured I'd have to wait to see what kind it was.   As it grew over the fence, the deer from the meadow enjoyed the leaves, stripping that part of the vine completely.  The rest of the vine kept growing.   I finally saw ONE squash, squished between the fence post and the compost bin, and figured out it was a banana squash.  We tore down part of the fence to make room for a greenhouse, and suddenly almost all of the leaves were stripped in a single night.   But there was another squash starting.   I just now harvested the first one, and will be trying it out.  The fact that I never watered it makes me think this will be a perfect landrace candidate.

- an elderberry volunteered next to my raised bed.  No idea where it came from.  We do have 2 elderberry trees on our property, and a ton in the area in general, but even the closest one is well over 600 yards away.   I finally got around to trying to dig it out so I could transplant it, but the taproot went way under the raised bed, so it broke off.  I stuck it in soil anyway, but it was dying.  I cut off a section that was 'not quite hardwood' and stuck that section into water.   It's sprouting leaves!   But no roots yet.

I have an ongoing  crop of garlic that started from grocery store garlic.  I've tried grocery store potatoes with varying degrees of success.  When I purchased actual 'seed potatoes' I had a much better crop.

Yes, that is how the first hybrid plant came about, seeds from fruit that was bigger, more fruit flash & taste better.

"Most plants are poisonous. Humans have cultivated those few that were edible and nutritious or good tasting, and have selectively bred them over thousands of years for a variety of traits including size, flavor, and color. "

I have grown & planted crops from store bought seeds for over fifty years, with no noticeable problems.
I have blueberry plant that was given to me, fifteen years after the owner had passed away & his widow wanted the
volunteer plants removed. She had a row of blueberry plants along a fence that the birds had dropping from eating blueberries & the seeds came up in the grass, thirty feet from her blueberry patch & I could not tell the difference
between the mother plant/berries & the seedling plant/berries.
I have had tomatoes, beans & southern peas, white potatoes, sweet potatoes all from the store, taste, shape & color/size was fine. Of course the white tuber were planted, but the sweet potatoes were used to grow slips/spouts which were planted as clones.

Loretta Liefveld wrote:I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

...

The tomatoes I grow from seeds of tomatoes I ate do produce and taste well. I am doing this for about 5 years now, growing new tomatoes out of the seeds of last year's tomatoes. Okay, I need to say: first I got a tomato plant of this particular tomato species (a 'wild tomato' with small yellow fruits). That was about 5 years ago.
Yes, they taste like the original tomato.

I once grew a leek plant from a piece of leek (bottom part with some roots). It got flowers and then seeds. I have sown those seeds and then new leeks have grown there, I think they are from those seeds ... They are smaller than the original, but that can be because my soil is very poor.

An apple tree grown from a seed (pit) is not really doing well. It hardly grows, doesn't bloom and so has not (yet) produced any fruit.

I regularly grow sweet potato slips from store sweet potatoes, and the potatoes i harvest are good, couldnt tell the difference from boughten ones except for maybe how long they store (since i don't treat them).

I grow a butternut that I started from a few store bought ones and going on three years they are great. A little bit of variability - we have huge ones and minis, but those little guys are nice for sharing with single folks.

I also use sweet potatoes from the store, they are fine and I can afford more varieties this way, plus get to taste them first. My garlic comes from locally grown garlic I bought from our co-op - this is a good idea if you live in a severe climate, like the desert SW. Regional, already acclimated garlic is a big plus in this case.

My sunchokes were from Azure Standard - 6 tubers grew 5 GALLONS of tubers that first year.  Now, three years later I have enough to provide everyone in our community with "seed stock" if they wanted it.   My ginger and turmeric from our local food coop. Lemongrass I ordered online from a person who goes into the Asian grocery in their city and buys the lemongrass then sends it to you!  You stick it in water and it roots quickly. It's great, makes big fat stalks. I would have bought galangal this way, but couldn't find any at the time, bought it off Etsy from a seller who grows it in his backyard instead.

So I haven't done any tree crops I can think of this way, mostly tubers and bulbing or clumping perennials.

This doesn't address the most recent questions, but I've had all failures in bulk organic store bought cilantro, dill and fennel the past few years.  I suspect those might now be flash pasteurized to deal with salmonella.

I've found that many people online are sprouting now and will ask companies online if their seeds will sprout. So now I try to ask ahead, too.

OOOH! I forgot, I am growing ginger this year, from discounded Ginger rhizomes that my wife bought.
I just pushed the plant into the soil of a gallon pot. There is a better way to grow ginger, but I trying the lazy way first.
It came up & has three plants/stems in the pot, in the spring I will have to repot it or the Rhizome will tear out of the pot. But it will over winter in my window first.

Loretta Liefveld wrote:I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

I am sure I have posted to this thread many times, at least once, if not twice.

We, my husband and I, have been using new potatoes from the grocery store for years.  My job was to cut the potatoes up and dear hubby planted them.  We always had a great harvest because dear hubby is a great gardener.

In 2020, as a last-ditch effort, I grabbed a couple of wrinkled potatoes, cut them up, and planted them.  That is when I decided that ants were my enemy and my water just had too much calcium in it.

Here you can read about the fingerlings that I got, they tasted great.:

https://permies.com/t/139849/Planted-Potatoes

We have also used grocery store garlic,  pinto beans, and purple hull peas with great success.

I will probably think of some other things though this is all I can think of now.

Loretta, here is a great example of grocery store tomatoes:

https://permies.com/t/200/45321/Harvesting-seeds-groceries#1363590

Loretta Liefveld wrote:I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

My mother always planted our peach trees from seed. Not deliberately, exactly, she would find one growing in the open compost pit, dig it up and plant it where she wanted a new tree. She also gave away many peach, plum, apricot and cherry seedlings. Basically you're looking at a cross between two parents--the offspring will generally be somewhere between the two. So yes, we got many peaches and apricots that were just as good as their parents. The two plum trees were purchased and she didn't want another so she gave away any plum seedlings. When I sold the house I had half a dozen peach seedlings, four apple seedlings, a couple that were probably nectarine (or at least they came from a nectarine tree), two almond seedlings and a single almond-peach cross. None of them were large enough to have fruit yet, although two of the peaches did bloom this past spring, a short time before I sold the house. So I can't say what kind of fruit they might have had.

Loretta Liefveld wrote:I've read lots of articles and posts in different places about doing this.  But most of the posts are from people that are just starting out doing it, and they haven't actually EATEN anything yet from what they have planted.

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

A seedling apple, planted in the shade of a hedge, took about 20 years to flower and fruit; somewhat like Crispin, which it may have been a seedling of.
Flowering Quince, Cheanomeles speciosa, maybe 3 years to start fruiting, probably as good as any other. From fruit from someone else's garden.
Loquat: well over 30 years old, in mid-Cheshire only flowers after a hot summer (so maybe this autumn), and produces very few fruit then. Does it need a pollination partner?
Oriental plum (most plums this side are Prunus domestica), suffers disease from proximity to a Cherry Plum. Bore 3 fruits this year (so a good year!), maybe pollinated by aforesaid. Maybe 20 year old - while young was stunted by a neighbour's leylandii, now chopped.
Two seedling apples - with too much crab in the genes. One (small fruit) got stumped, other's (modest fruit, drop fast) being used to graft onto. Took maybe 10 years.
Cherry Plum: from pips gathered either locally or while on holiday. Two came up close, rubbed bark, one caught disease and died. Gets a lot of 'pocket plum' disease, so better in dry seasons. Still not a lot of fruit, I think it prefers something more like woodland edge rather than nestled up close to a hazel. Good for timber!
Hazel - was a rootstock for a corkscrew hazel, scion failed so a garden centre bargain. I don't see many nuts, there's a lack of other local hazels, so I'm working on a filbert for a partner. Can't remember how long it took to fruit. It's a Butler type.

Anthony Powell wrote:
A seedling apple, planted in the shade of a hedge, took about 20 years to flower and fruit; somewhat like Crispin, which it may have been a seedling of.
....
....
Oriental plum (most plums this side are Prunus domestica), suffers disease from proximity to a Cherry Plum. Bore 3 fruits this year (so a good year!), maybe pollinated by aforesaid. Maybe 20 year old - while young was stunted by a neighbour's leylandii, now chopped.
Two seedling apples - with too much crab in the genes. One (small fruit) got stumped, other's (modest fruit, drop fast) being used to graft onto. Took maybe 10 years.
Cherry Plum: from pips gathered either locally or while on holiday. Two came up close, rubbed bark, one caught disease and died. Gets a lot of 'pocket plum' disease, so better in dry seasons. Still not a lot of fruit, I think it prefers something more like woodland edge rather than nestled up close to a hazel. Good for timber!
Hazel - was a rootstock for a corkscrew hazel, scion failed so a garden centre bargain. I don't see many nuts, there's a lack of other local hazels, so I'm working on a filbert for a partner. Can't remember how long it took to fruit. It's a Butler type.

Thanks for that info on how long it took for the trees.  That's what I'm thinking, too.....   trees just take a long time to bear fruit.  Since we are in our 70's, we might not see much in the way of fruit while we live here.   We have lots of wild apples, cherries and plums in the area, but most of them are some walking distance from the house.   We had two great cherry trees that had to be cut down for fire mitigation reasons (they were ladder fuel for the Ponderosa pines).

an elderberry volunteered next to my raised bed.  No idea where it came from.  We do have 2 elderberry trees on our property, and a ton in the area in general, but even the closest one is well over 600 yards away.   I finally got around to trying to dig it out so I could transplant it, but the taproot went way under the raised bed, so it broke off.  I stuck it in soil anyway, but it was dying.  I cut off a section that was 'not quite hardwood' and stuck that section into water.   It's sprouting leaves!   But no roots yet.

Be patient. Elderberry is fairly easy to propagate like that. I would suggest putting it into some soil at this point & keeping the soil moist until it really takes off. Maybe dip the stem into some rooting hormone first.

This year I grew a cabbage from the stem of some bought spring greens which sprouted roots in the compost bucket.  It was all the more remarkable as I have never grown a cabbage before, only kale.  

Mike Barkley wrote:

Be patient. Elderberry is fairly easy to propagate like that. I would suggest putting it into some soil at this point & keeping the soil moist until it really takes off. Maybe dip the stem into some rooting hormone first.

Thanks, Mike.  I'll do that.   Right now, it's hanging out in our not-quite-finished greenhouse.  Since elderberries grow wild all over here, I know they can handle to winters well, but I thought I might keep it in the greenhouse for the winter, since it's just getting started, and then plant it in the spring... well, whenever the ground thaws and then dries out enough that I can dig in it.

Hester Winterbourne wrote:This year I grew a cabbage from the stem of some bought spring greens which sprouted roots in the compost bucket.  It was all the more remarkable as I have never grown a cabbage before, only kale.  

Wow!  I'm very impressed that it grew just from 'spring greens'.  That's a great looking cabbage!

resprouting cabbage greens is impressive.  Never thought of trying that.  I just suggested starting some inside in a bucket, and resprouting the greens to try to get enough cabbage for the garden.  We will also have to try it on other cruciferous veggies to see if that works across the entire family.

BTW, a quick PSA from when I was taking my classes for my certification as a master gardener...  You should be careful resprouting plants you get from the grocery store -- they could easily have diseases or parasites.   The seeds are likely safer -- assuming you cut them from the inside of the plant, but you still might want to sterilize the exterior before cutting them open for the seeds.  Hope this is not a killjoy post, but with a little extra care we can do this safely.

Oops, forgot to mention the cherries!

Only a few years ago someone gave me some big tasty cherries. I ate them and put the pits in the soil in my back yard.

This spring I saw a small tree blooming. Didn't know exactly what kind of tree, looked like 'Prunus'. Than some months later there were cherries! Only a few, but they were delicious! I hope to have more next year.

So not all trees grown from seed take many years to fruit.

Ebo David wrote:resprouting cabbage greens is impressive.  Never thought of trying that.  I just suggested starting some inside in a bucket, and resprouting the greens to try to get enough cabbage for the garden.  We will also have to try it on other cruciferous veggies to see if that works across the entire family.

BTW, a quick PSA from when I was taking my classes for my certification as a master gardener...  You should be careful resprouting plants you get from the grocery store -- they could easily have diseases or parasites.   The seeds are likely safer -- assuming you cut them from the inside of the plant, but you still might want to sterilize the exterior before cutting them open for the seeds.  Hope this is not a killjoy post, but with a little extra care we can do this safely.

I hear you, but... I would otherwise be putting them in the compost heap, so diseases could well survive that anyway.  They looked healthy enough, they weren't organic and I don't think parasites could be lurking.  They would have been from this country, which is a plus with regard to not importing a foreign pest or disease.  I would be wary of sprouting store bought potatoes, certainly.  Maybe the plant family has something to do with this, i just can't think of any cabbage diseases or pests that could be carried.  The allotment already has clubroot, allegedly.

I was going to add, I think the reason it sprouted in the compost bucket could have been high ethylene levels.

@Hester, fair enough.  As mentioned this is a general PSA, but some things to remember.  When aging your compost, it will often get hot enough to kill many pathogens.  If your compost is never getting hot, then that could be a problem.  When was the last time it was turned in relation to material added?  Anyway, this was the advice I was given by one of the master gardener teachers.

I wish you all the best of health and success.

I have grown veggies from stem cuttings after I used the outer leaves. Celery, kale and cabbage all root easily this way.

May Lotito wrote:I have grown veggies from stem cuttings after I used the outer leaves. Celery, kale and cabbage all root easily this way.

Yes, it is possible. But the inner leaves are the best to eat, is my opinion. So  I can not regrow them.

You don't need the inner leaves in order to regrow them. Eat all the leaves, plant the base. New leaves will sprout.

I've had a lot of luck planting the roots of those live lettuces they sell with the roots attached, I've managed to get about 3 more heads depending upon how early I plant them.

The coolest thing I managed to do, after having read through this thread quite a bit, was I successfully managed to grow some winter wheat, red wheat, and rye. It took about 3 weeks to germinate, likely because of a cold snap that happened in the middle, but I couldn't believe the grains actually popped up some plants!

I had incredible success growing papayas from seed. Now I have papaya weeds all over my yard. My own North Florida landrace.

Another favorite of mine is buying malanga from the grocery store and propagating a dozen plants from a single root. You can eat it and plant the peelings (have your cake and eat it too!).

Last year I got lazy around Christmas time and instead of dealing with my compost as I should, I just dumped it into a raised bed in the greenhouse as the bucket got full. The bed was compacted and I planned to cover the whole thing with wood chips and allow time to fix its issues but the onion ends and carrot tops were rooting in so I figured that would help the compaction too and left it alone. By March, entirely too cold for tomatoes here, I had a spectacular crop of indeterminate tomatoes from it as well as all the bits and bobs that rooted. It was an eye opening experience and I have been hooked since. Buying organic produce seems to prevent the produce from being sprayed to inhibit sprouting.

Here in Australia, any produce that is coming into the country is exposed to mild radiation to kill off pathogens and diseases.  It also renders the seed useless.  Which is frustrating yet essential to protect our own biodiversity.  I am not sure if it is the same for other countries.

Jason Sparrow wrote:Here in Australia, any produce that is coming into the country is exposed to mild radiation to kill off pathogens and diseases.  It also renders the seed useless.  Which is frustrating yet essential to protect our own biodiversity.  I am not sure if it is the same for other countries.

And how about all that's not imported, but produced in Australia (regionally, locally)?

What a great thread, so much to learn!

Stuff that I tried and worked for me:

Trees - fig, mulberry, citrus, avocado.

Speaking of avocado, I see some people are very interested in it:

G Freden wrote:Last summer I found an unknown tree seedling growing in one of my beds;  it looked kind of like a laurel, which we have at the back, but not quite.  Since I didn't want a tree there, I reached down and pulled it out.  The whole stem came up, including the seed, and I then realized this tree was growing from an avocado pit.  I live in the north of England.  Avocado pits, along with the rest of my kitchen scraps, get dumped outside on the beds for the chickens to peck over.

Sadly it died, even though I tried to transplant it into a pot.  I think I broke too much of its taproot when I yanked it out.  I would have liked to have had the only avocado tree in Yorkshire

I have tried and had success with avocado, they grow like crazy here (Portugal). I used both direct in soil and toothpicks and water methods, both worked. Now I had to offer it to a lady because she has land and I only have a balcony. Anyway, before offering it to her, I did some searches and the avocados are usually terrible to grow from seed. Check it out here: https://www.upworthy.com/growing-hass-avocados-secrets-rp2
Basically, your chances of getting a good avocado are about 1 in 10,000 - you will probably need to graft it.

Veggies from plant parts: Cilantro, Celery, Potato, Ginger, Sweet potato, Onion, Spring Onion.
Veggies from seeds: Tomato, Chilli, Peppers, Melons, Squashes, Watermelons, Chayote (started to sprout in my fridge like crazy).

I've had very bad luck with garlic, it always gets extreme attacks by aphids for some reason.

What I'm thinking of trying soon if I get a chance: cherry, apple, almond, chestnut (didn't take good care of it last season, so it died), walnut, pine nut, apricot.

Last year I had an avocado plant spring forth from where I composted it in my garden. I brought it in before the fall, but accidentally killed it in the winter. We don't get many avocado trees up in the northeast.  It was great to see how the tree grew right out of that big seed. I had wondered if I could grow one from one of those seeds. I guess I did.

I recently had some beets sprout while lost in the back of my fridge so I cut the tops off of the ones that had and the ones that hadn’t sprouted and stuck them in some dirt. The ones with sprouts are already producing loads of leaves for the bunnies while the ones with no sprouts are just getting started showing leaves. The cool thing is that it’s only been a few weeks since I planted them. I love experimenting!

Loretta Liefveld wrote:

Since this thread is 7 years old, I would be very interested in hearing from people that have started doing this when this thread was started.

1.  Did the fruit/berries actually end up producing?    How long did it take?
2.  Did the result taste like the original?  Or at least 'as good as'?

I started this thread - has it really been seven years?  

Most of the techniques I mentioned, I've been doing most of my adult life.

Depending on the fruit tree and conditions, it can start producing in 2-10 years.  Faster if we graft, but I usually like to wait for the first harvest to see if I like the flavour or if I want to graft something else on the tree.  Nut trees take closer to 5-25years to the first harvest... again, depending on type and conditions.

The results are worth it.  I've seldom had anything grow I didn't enjoy.  Most of the time it grows true - or close enough - so that the future harvests resemble the parent.   Some fruits and veg are hybrids and may not grow true, but we can select the most delicious descendants and save seeds from them, after about three generations (some crops take two years to seed, others we can grow three or more generations in  one summer), most crops are pretty consistently delicious.  

so yep, it works.  

Joseph Lofthouse wrote: Sometimes whole spice seeds will germinate.

Thanks! I never thought of that one! You are the best!

Cat Knight wrote:

Joseph Lofthouse wrote: Sometimes whole spice seeds will germinate.

Thanks! I never thought of that one! You are the best!

Whoa!  Me neither!  Well, except dill , coriander, mustard, flax, chia, cumin, nigella etc, the really obvious SEEDS, but when I read whole spice seed, my mind went to black, white, green pepper, allspice and maybe there are some others.

Joseph, have you tried the peppers or allspice?  Or did you mean the others?

Can we get some reports on the most unlikely successes people have had?  Like the compost thread about the strangest things people have composted?

Or would that be off topic, or does that thread already exist?

Thekla McDaniels wrote:

Whoa!  Me neither!  Well, except dill , coriander, mustard, flax, chia, cumin, nigella etc, the really obvious SEEDS, but when I read whole spice seed, my mind went to black, white, green pepper, allspice and maybe there are some others.

I mean, I knew those were seeds we eat (or use in the case of flax), but I never actually thought to try to sprout them... I have no idea why I never thought about it. And I was thinking about stuff like star and normal anise, fennel, and caraway when I read that. although depending on where you get your spices from it may be less expensive to just buy a pack of seeds.

I love the idea of a thread dedicated to sharing what people have successfully grown from the grocery store. FYI grocery store pecans did not germinate. Maybe they might from the bulk nuts?

About my Avocado tree I told in the thread about growing avocados in colder climates. It is still going well (about 7 years now) in my living room. I do not expect it to fruit.

Did I tell about the Cherry tree in my back yard? Some years ago I put some cherry stones in the ground. I forgot about them. Then I discovered a tree with nice blossoms. It seemed to be a kind of Prunus. A year later this tree even produced a few fruits: real cherries! Two cherries, with a good taste. That was last year. I think this spring was too cold, there are no cherries now.