We just got about a peck of the most delicious peaches from my inlaws neighbor. So I got the idea of planting my own peach trees.
So how do you plant a peach tree? When is thr best time to plant?
Searching the net just got me info about transplanting.
Perhaps it’s the terms you’re using?
If you plug the words: plant peach pit into google, you may get more of what you’re looking for?
Such as:
Q: When should you plant peach pits to start a new tree?
A: Starting peach trees from seeds is not recommended because the seed will not exactly produce the same variety as the tree the pit came from. However, if you wish to try, they will either need to be stratified artificially or by Mother Nature. Place the seeds in moist paper towels in January and then in a zip-lock plastic bag and place in the refrigerator until April. At this time they will be ready to plant in a pot or in the ground. Or place the seeds in a pot of loose potting soil in early winter and allow Mother Nature to do the job for you.
You will need to keep the pots watered during the winter months if it doesn’t rain occassionally. The seeds should sprout naturally in the spring once the weather conditions become favorable.
From here.
I’ve never grown a peach from seed, but it looks doable:
What will happen if I plant a peach pit?
So how do you duplicate a tree with a great tasting peach?
By taking cuttings, which is a form of cloning. That is, the new tree is genetically identical to the parent.
More specifically, a commercial producer of peach trees would typically graft a cutting (called a scion in the context of grafting) of a named variety onto a rootstock - the rootstock is either grown from seed or produced as a hardwood cutting from a rootstock variety.
Most of the fruit trees in the rose family (apples, plums, pears, peaches, cherries etc) are grown this way, as the rootstock has a significant effect on the vigour, crop weight and growth habit of the plant and named varieties selected for fruit quality often grow poorly on their own roots, or are susceptible to disease etc.
There’s no reason at all why you can’t grow peaches from seed though - you just won’t get a plant that is guaranteed to be like the parent - you need to chill the seed before it will germinate and by far the easiest way to do this is to put it in a pot with some soil, sink the pot into the ground and leave it there all winter.
Apples grown from seed are likely to be smaller, harder and sourer than the parent variety - although not always (but they will certainly be different) and indeed growing from seed is exaclty how commercial nurseries invent new varieties, but they might have one promising seedling variety amongst ten thousand rejects.
Self-sown fruit trees are common along railway embankments in the UK, because the litter that the Victorians threw out of the carriage windows consisted of apple and pear cores, cherry and plum stones etc - a few of which will have taken root - the trees we have today are probably at least second or third-generation offspring of these original Victorian self-sown seedlings but, especially with the apples, there can still be found trees bearing fruit similar to named varieties.
Despite the inherent variability in the process, a peach tree grown from seed is actually quite likely to produce worthwhile fruit, eventually - it might take a while to come into bearing, but the chances of growing something edible are far better for peaches than they are for apples.
When I was a kid, my brother planted a peach pit, and it grew into a very healthy tree that consistently produced delicious peaches the size of grapefruit. That was over 40 years ago, so peach propagation has probably changed, but at least it used to be quite doable.
To get a new variety, or at least peaches that will taste good from seed, you have to plant a lot of them, let them blossom and flower and then try the fruit. Something like that takes a lot of time, and for most fruiting trees, it takes years before they flower and fruit. Peach trees are quite attractive in flower however, so if you want to grow one just for that purpose, by all means.
Mm… I’m buying peaches next time I’m at the store.
I really like planting my produce. I had the nicest lemon plant (“Larry the Lemon”) until I killed him by neglect when we lived in a horrible condo with a baking balcony on a six-lane unceasingly busy and noisy street so I never went out onto the balc…
Anyway. I’m buying peaches. I want a baby peach tree, too, and I think I can manage the “put it in good dirt and leave it alone all winter” part.
Lisa the Lemon is doing quite nicely, by the way, as we’ve moved and I’m into the growing green things again.
Oh. If you’re ever in a grocery store and see a starfruit–its seeds make a really attractive plant.
The chances of producing something edible, eventually are actually quite high for peaches; much more so than apples (where you will probably end up with something closer to a crab apple than the original variety) and cherries (where you’ll most likely get lots of fruit, but they will probably be small and sour.
Peaches from seed will certainly be different from the parent, but they will usually still be quite recognisable as peaches and perfectly edible.
It would have to have some redeeming feature; the fruit itself tastes like cardboard.