ButteryHOLsomeness
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Using seeds from store bought foodi just made a comment about tahir saying he used coriander from a seed packet
when we lived on skye and i had some land to grow things on i grew a LOT of salad veg and a lot of it was straight from seeds originally sold at the supermarket as food
like coriander seed sold at the indian market as a spice, same with mustard seeds etc
i have also grown peppers from the seeds of store bought red peppers and know someone that had great success (actually BETTER success) with growing marrowfat peas from the peas bought to soak and cook. he said they produced low growing densely fruited plants with an excellent flavour
i have heard the arguments about these items likely being F1 hybrids and them not coming true the next year BUT for a few reasons i wonder if it really matters
it's normally much cheaper to buy seed in this manner than it would be from a catalogue. personally, for the amount of coriander i was growing i simply couldn't have afforded to buy it from a seed company.
secondly, in the case of peppers, it's just something your were going to throw away anyway, why not plant it?
also the 'not coming true' issue... that doesn't mean it won't produce the next year if you save seed from it does it? my understanding was that it only means that you likely won't retain the same qualities the orginal plant had, but it will still grow i should think and who's to say it won't do very well?
i suppose you could say that if it doesn't do so well you can just go buy another bag of the original from the store and start again, as i'm referring to plants that are annuals anyway
i'm curious to know how many of you have tried this and what successes and failures you may have had. i'm particularly keen to hear if anyone has saved seed from plants grown in this manner and what happened to the plants from that saved seed
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gill_didsbury
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using seeds from store bought foodHi,
I have grown sun flowers from a bird mix I feed my cockertiel, one is about 2 feet tall and in flower.
Pumkin from seeds from butternut I have bought.
Grown onions form the bottom part (where the roots are, that would normally be thrown away)
Tomatoe seeds can be saved too, washed and dried.
Basically, anything that has seeds should grow.
I have a book about planting from store bought food,
its called The after-dinner gardening book by Richard W Langer it tells of all the things you can you can plant from store bought food.
Gill (Australia)
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judyofthewoods
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I have grown Cape Gooseberry successfully. Very easy to germinate, and I've had delicous fruit from it, despite badly neglecting the plant, and growing it for two seasons in its tiny original pot. Now in its third or fourth year.
Not had any success with fig from seed, not one germinated. Maybe it needed higher temperatures than I had.
Had a few avocado trees from the stones of the fruit. Did really well until I moved into a very samll place and left the trees outdoors. Frost killed them  .
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Blue Sky
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Re: Using seeds from store bought food | ButteryHOLsomeness wrote: | | i'm curious to know how many of you have tried this and what successes and failures you may have had. i'm particularly keen to hear if anyone has saved seed from plants grown in this manner and what happened to the plants from that saved seed |
I agree with you Buttery. On the rare occasion that we afford the luxury of sweet peppers from the market we always dry the seeds. Last year we were very succesful with them but we got 'em in too late so the fruits didn't ripen. We got a few small green ones however. This year I have over a hundred pepper plants in varying stages of development. We should at least be self-sufficient in peppers through the winter. I also have loads of chilli pepper plants (from chillies).
In addition we have tried (and succeeded with) Oranges, Kiwi fruit, various courgette/squash, runner beans, pumpkin and probably others I have forgotten.
So far our failures have been Grapefruit, Avacado, Pineapple
We intend to try these again.
I am a big beleiver in "something for free". Never throw pips and seeds out. Stick 'em in a pot - you never know.
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jema
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Re: Using seeds from store bought food | simon wrote: | | ButteryHOLsomeness wrote: | | i'm curious to know how many of you have tried this and what successes and failures you may have had. i'm particularly keen to hear if anyone has saved seed from plants grown in this manner and what happened to the plants from that saved seed |
I agree with you Buttery. On the rare occasion that we afford the luxury of sweet peppers from the market we always dry the seeds. Last year we were very succesful with them but we got 'em in too late so the fruits didn't ripen. We got a few small green ones however. This year I have over a hundred pepper plants in varying stages of development. We should at least be self-sufficient in peppers through the winter. I also have loads of chilli pepper plants (from chillies).
In addition we have tried (and succeeded with) Oranges, Kiwi fruit, various courgette/squash, runner beans, pumpkin and probably others I have forgotten.
So far our failures have been Grapefruit, Avacado, Pineapple
We intend to try these again.
I am a big beleiver in "something for free". Never throw pips and seeds out. Stick 'em in a pot - you never know. |
I recall as a kid of maybe 10, growing an apple tree from seed, possibly with little more motivation than being told it would not work  I had zero interest in gardening. I recall it did become a productive tree 
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culpepper
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We grew some harricot bean plants from a packet of dried harricots when my 2 were little.
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Blue Sky
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Re: Using seeds from store bought food | jema wrote: | | I recall as a kid of maybe 10, growing an apple tree from seed, possibly with little more motivation than being told it would not work I had zero interest in gardening. I recall it did become a productive tree |
That's good to know. I put some apple pips in last week. Don't suppose you remember how long it took to germinate Jema?
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jema
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Re: Using seeds from store bought food | simon wrote: | | jema wrote: | | I recall as a kid of maybe 10, growing an apple tree from seed, possibly with little more motivation than being told it would not work I had zero interest in gardening. I recall it did become a productive tree |
That's good to know. I put some apple pips in last week. Don't suppose you remember how long it took to germinate Jema? |
It was decades ago  but I seem to recall it was a very very long time, and I had probably given up on it.
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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wow, this is very interesting!
i'd forgotten that we tried chillis once as well. i did some from store bought chillis and some from seed company chillis
both were very difficult to get get to germinate despite putting them in a nice dark and warm airing cupboard. after they did germinate the store bought chilli variety did MUCH better!
unfortunately it was too late in the season though so they never quite fruited but it was a good experiment
i also just threw some lentils in to grow as an experiment. it was september on skye in a pot on the window ledge so i wasn't expecting miracles. what i did end up with was a very leggy plant about a foot high before it died from lack of sunlight. has anyone tried growing lentils? i have no idea how much heat they need
oranges, kiwi and apples eh?
how long does it take to grow trees from seeds? did you get oranges and kiwis in the end simon? did you dry the seeds first or sow them 'wet'. 'HOW' exactly did you do the kiwi seeds?
sunflower seeds are good too, i will definately try that one when i get some space as i love them. Jill, did you hull them, crack them open or just leave them in their shells?
judy, what did you do with the gooseberries to make them grow? i love gooseberries myself. in fact, i once tasted them at this sort of traveling green grocer when i was about 11. i spent the next 17 years of my life trying to find them again in the states and had no success til i moved to scotland... on skye i had a 1 year old bush that i bought and it was just starting to fruit when the damned woolie maggots (formerly known as sheep) ate it down to the ground
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kinkycat
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This is just the topic for me as I have spent a fortune on seeds so far this year. I was told seeds from F1 would not grow again, will have to go look that up on the internet. Right now I have an avocado and melon from which I would like to save the seeds, so I would also be grateful to know how people go about this - is it necessary to dry them, etc.
Anyone know how I get cucumber seeds?
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Bugs
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| kinkycat wrote: | | I was told seeds from F1 would not grow again |
They will grow (providing they are viable but that extends to all seeds F1 or not) but they just won't necessarily produce the same fruit/veg as you sowed seeds from. For example I sowed seeds from a pointed chilli, and got a blunt ended jalapeno alike as well as a long thin chilli quite like the original. Weird, eh? But both edible.
The only real danger is that you wind up expending precious space/resources on something that is not edible or more likely, just not very tasty/interesting. So it's worth a go for interest but you must be prepared for it to not replace a trip to the greengrocer!
If you can get hold of The Pip Book by Keith Mossman (second hand only I fear) that will give you lots of ideas.
avocado you can sow fresh or suspend over water using toothpicks/matchsticks - should be possible to find something on the web about it
melon is from a family which is most likely to have crossed with others and as the main thing you want from a melon is sweetness I would only try these if you have loads of room you don't need for something else - it's a little late but you could try sowing some now, a good and late summer might see you coming back here in September to say "Bugs wot a lot of rot you talk" through a mouthful of juicy fruit!
| Quote: | | Anyone know how I get cucumber seeds? |
From a seed company I'm afraid, or a seed swap...the fruit you buy in the shop is picked long before the seeds mature enough to sow. The seed is very very expensive but with the right variety in the right conditions you only need one or at the most two plants for a summer's worth for a big family. Look out for good offers...I tend to flag them up here when I find them so stick around! You could possibly still get hold of a plant for this summer now from a nursery.
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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tis a shame about the cucumbers, the american cucumbers are very different and always have plenty of seeds...
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thos
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You will also be growing the commercial varieties. These are developed to look nice and ripen at the same time. For most of what you want to grow, your priorities are flavour and (depending on the crop) staggered ripening.
A better bet would be to share seeds with other people, because there are always far too many in a packet. (I don't practise this yet, but I am hopeful).
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Bugs
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| thos wrote: | | A better bet would be to share seeds with other people, because there are always far too many in a packet. (I don't practise this yet, but I am hopeful). |
Exactly, I've done a fair bit of trading on this site this year and now that I'm comfortable with a few people here I am thinking about formalising the exchange next year so that I will say buy xyz seeds and someone else will buy abc seeds and we can swap z for b and x for c...
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Blue Sky
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Re: Using seeds from store bought food | jema wrote: | | It was decades ago but I seem to recall it was a very very long time, and I had probably given up on it. |
Thanks Jema. Sounds just like my orange pips. They took months.
... so did my grape pips come to that.
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Blue Sky
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| ButteryHOLsomeness wrote: | oranges, kiwi and apples eh?
how long does it take to grow trees from seeds? did you get oranges and kiwis in the end simon? did you dry the seeds first or sow them 'wet'. 'HOW' exactly did you do the kiwi seeds? |
The oranges went in straight from the orange and took about 3 months to germinate. The are still only small plants so no fruit as yet. So are my kiwi plants. I dried the kiwi seeds on a peice of tissue and left them a week or so. When I came to plant 'em they wouldn't release from the tissue so I put the whole thing into the pot with some compost. They took about a month to come up. Still waiting for the apples ... they only went in last week and as Jema has said it may be ages yet.
| kinkycat wrote: | | Anyone know how I get cucumber seeds? |
Just take them out of the cucumber (in the middle bit) and dry them i think. Melons are an easy one I am told. Not tried them yet tho'. Dry the seeds first. We have avacado stones in a jar of water on the mantlepiece but nothing has happened yet. My sister used to grow 'em like this tho'. I will have to have a word with her.
| Bugs wrote: | | Quote: | | Anyone know how I get cucumber seeds? |
From a seed company I'm afraid, or a seed swap...the fruit you buy in the shop is picked long before the seeds mature enough to sow. The seed is very very expensive but with the right variety in the right conditions you only need one or at the most two plants for a summer's worth for a big family. Look out for good offers...I tend to flag them up here when I find them so stick around! You could possibly still get hold of a plant for this summer now from a nursery. |
Oh sorry Bugs, Just seen this bit ..... I stand corrected then 
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judyofthewoods
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Buttery, the goosberry was a 'cape' gooseberry, and had nothing to do with 'normal' goosberries. Its proper name, I think, is physalis, and it has little papery lantern shells in which the orange fruit grows. They have quite a distinkt, almost perfumed taste. I like the taste. I had a very high, possibly 100% germination rate.
The avoado was an 'accident' in the compost heap.
I don't know about individual trees, like apple or citrus, but many tree seeds need a very long time to germinate, if I remember rightly up to 18 months or so, and some will need a chilling period. Its all been a little while since I looked into that, and my research applied specifically to native forest trees like oak etc. Google the word 'stratification' with a more specific like 'tree seeds' and you will probably come up with some discription of layering seeds in trenches or whatever it means to prepare tree seeds for germination.
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Blue Sky
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| judyofthewoods wrote: | | The avoado was an 'accident' in the compost heap. |
I just love accidents like that!
More free food
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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| judyofthewoods wrote: | Buttery, the goosberry was a 'cape' gooseberry, and had nothing to do with 'normal' goosberries. Its proper name, I think, is physalis, and it has little papery lantern shells in which the orange fruit grows. They have quite a distinkt, almost perfumed taste. I like the taste. I had a very high, possibly 100% germination rate.
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ooh yes physalis i grew one of those from seeds from a company
the thing was HUGE! unfortunately it got forgotten about before it fruited as i was heavily pregnant and had SPD (serious displacment of the hips) so i couldn't get upstairs anymore to water it.the only place we had that was warm enough and light enough for it was in the eaves under a velux window
poor thing died for lack of water. dh was working 60-70hours a week before coire came to keep us in good stead for the winter (no work on skye in the winter)... a real shame as i'm sure i'd have gotten fruit
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kinkycat
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Re; cucumbers, if the shop bought ones are picked long before the seed develops does that mean I could get seeds by leaving a cue to grow on the plant? I have 4 plants and quite a few cues on them so I am able to experiment.
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n
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Bugs, I would be up for seed trading next year, how could it be organised?
n
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crackapple
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I sowed some shop bought birds eye chilli seeds and had great success. They where the hottest chillis i have ever had!!
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Mad Dad
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My daughter germinated seed from conference pears on damp tissue paper 2 years ago so I potted them in compost. I now have two robust little trees around 1ft tall. Im not sure when or if they will bear fruit but I live in hope...
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crackapple
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Just looked into my greenhouse and saw that i have 2 pomegranete shoots coming up, i sowed them about 3 weeks ago , anyone know anything about looking after them?
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Bugs
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Apparently they are not fussy about soil, but need a lot of water in summer (true, as far as we can tell with ours) so just prick them out now in to small pots and consider moving them up one before the end of the summer if you find the roots are really moving. It will naturally produce suckers and branch and is quite a pretty little shrub, although you should probably be less cruel than I am and pot them on again next year.
We've got four pomegranates in pots, they're terribly pot bound but looking healthy on top, about 18 months old now, I think, and came through the winter OK in an unheated greenhouse but the one we kept indoors died. I think I will pot them on soon and might try one or two in the ground outdoors as they are meant to be fairly hardy.
The Pip Book says it reaches a max of 15ft and will live in a sheltered place outdoors in the UK, but in a greenhouse it can be brough to fruit (edible ones!). Deciduous in this climate, with pretty scarlet flowers.
It seems like they're a relatively worthwhile experiment as they aren't fussy or much work to keep going, look pretty, and one day they might just fruit.
In 2003 one of the RHS gardens got a seed grown containerised Hass avocado to fruit...then, they do have slightly more resources than most of us 
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crackapple
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thanks a lot bugs. it looks like a worthwile experiment ok, will let you know how it goes.
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Andrea
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| gill_didsbury wrote: | | I have grown sun flowers from a bird mix I feed my cockertiel, one is about 2 feet tall and in flower. |
My Granddad unexpectedly grew some very healthy hemp plants under his bird table which were the talk of the town for a short while!
The toms and potatos I grew from ones that had gone a bit manky in the fridge were better than the shop bought seed variety. Someone asked about tomato seeds, I just squished the tomato & planted the seeds pulp and all.
This year I have nectarine plants growing. I have three which are about a foot tall now. They took forever to sprout (9 months?), I'd actually completely forgotton them & and had just left the pots, unwatered, in the greenhouse. I only noticed they were sprouting when I emptied the pots to reuse the compost.
I've also got melon seedlings on the go, just planted straight from the fruit. They sprout really quickly, just a couple of days. I've never had allot of success with melons though. They seem to rot at the base of the stem when they get to a certain point, even when I keep the surface of the soil dry. Can anyone shed any light on it?
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Blue Sky
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| crackapple wrote: | | Just looked into my greenhouse and saw that i have 2 pomegranete shoots coming up, i sowed them about 3 weeks ago , anyone know anything about looking after them? |
I'm afraid I can't help. Suffice to say that we have a large pomegranite tree in the back garden but the fruits always fall off before they get chance to ripen.
If anyone else has any knopwledge in this field it would be appreciated by me also.
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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i don't understand the point of pomegranates anyway... the seeds are horrible to eat but i don't fancy sucking the tiny fleshy bits off... what am i doing wrong
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Bugs
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| ButteryHOLsomeness wrote: | | i don't understand the point of pomegranates anyway... the seeds are horrible to eat but i don't fancy sucking the tiny fleshy bits off... what am i doing wrong |
Nothing, logically speaking I don't get it either...my mum used to buy them for me when I was little, and they're available in the winter which I guess makes them popular here. The juice is nice, and supposedly lots of goodies in it, but it is terribly awkward and I don't like the seeds either. Nigella is dreadfully enthusiastic about the jewel like somethingness of it all, but I don't get that.
See if you can squash them or perhaps process and strain, the juice is indeed nice, in an odd way. Also, only buy from the market where you should get several frapaaaand (as they say in the markets down here )
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wellington womble
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I think they aay that on Markets every where
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Bugs
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Nah, where Buttery comes from it is probably fourfrapooond, surely?
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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nah
fooerfae aepooound morelikes 
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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i think i'd prefer to grow passionfruit... you can eat those seeds and they are lovely mmmmmmm
has anyone had any success with growing and getting fruit from a passion fruit, store seeds or seed company seeds?
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judyofthewoods
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I got passionfruit seeds to germinate, but lost the plants to damping off desease. Will try again with sterile compost and better light conditions. Love them too. Got the seeds from the fruit I ate.
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Blue Sky
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| ButteryHOLsomeness wrote: | | i don't understand the point of pomegranates anyway... the seeds are horrible to eat but i don't fancy sucking the tiny fleshy bits off... what am i doing wrong |
Just chew 'em (carefully) and spit the pips out.
We think they are lovely
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