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Planting apple seeds at home is easier than most people think, and yes, those seedlings really do grow into fruit-bearing apple trees. The seeds inside any apple you eat will sprout readily once they’ve had a few weeks of cold to break dormancy, and from there they grow into healthy young trees that you can plant out into a real backyard orchard.
Table of Contents
- Notes from My Homestead
- Can You Grow Apples from Seed?
- Choosing Apple Seeds to Plant
- How to Cold Stratify Apple Seeds
- How to Plant Apple Seeds (Step by Step)
- How Long Do Apple Seeds Take to Germinate?
- Caring for Apple Seedlings
- Overwintering Apple Seedlings
- Transplanting Apple Seedlings
- How Long Until Apple Seedlings Bear Fruit?
- Update from Our Orchard (Several Years Later)
- Other Fruits to Grow from Seed
- Apple Seed FAQs
- More Seedling Growing Guides
- How to Plant Apple Seeds Recipe
Apple trees are surprisingly easy to grow from seed, the catch most gardeners have heard is that apple seeds don’t come true to type. The seedling won’t be genetically identical to the parent variety, so a Honeycrisp seed won’t grow into a Honeycrisp tree, which is why most modern orchards rely on grafted trees instead of seedlings.
What that warning leaves out is that every named heirloom apple in existence (Newton Pippin, Roxbury Russet, McIntosh, and every other heirloom apple variety we treasure) was once a seedling that someone got curious about and decided to keep. Planting an apple from seed is a bit of a lottery ticket, and you’re playing for the chance of something genuinely good.
The actual work is simple. Apple seeds need about six weeks of cold stratification in the refrigerator to break dormancy, and once they’ve chilled, the seedlings emerge in just a week or two and grow into healthy young trees within a few months. The bigger commitment is patience, since seedling apples typically take six to ten years to bear their first fruit. We planted our first batch about a decade ago, and the trees are now starting to fruit.
Notes from My Homestead
Our homestead seedling orchard started with one big apple taste test. We bought every variety we could find at a local heirloom apple orchard, sat down with a knife and a notebook, and ate our way through more than thirty different apples over a long fall afternoon. The seeds from our favorites went into the fridge in damp paper towels for cold stratification, and by spring we had a tray of seedlings ready to plant out. Most of those trees are now nearly a decade old, and several of them have started to fruit.
The honest report from our orchard is exactly what the textbooks promise. Some of our seedlings produce very good apples, some are middling, and we have one tree whose fruit is so tannic it’ll pucker your whole face. That tannic tree turns out to be perfect for hard cider, which actually needs a portion of high-tannin or high-acid apples to balance the sweet ones. We didn’t plant it for cider, but we got cider material anyway, and that’s the whole point of seedling apples. You don’t always get what you bet on, but you almost always get something useful.
I followed your advice. Pulled my seeds out of the fridge today. I had 100% germination on gala apple seeds. They are vigorous and already have roots about an inch long! Thanks for sharing this knowledge!
Can You Grow Apples from Seed?
Yes, you can absolutely grow apple trees from seed, and the seeds inside any apple you eat are perfectly viable for planting. The catch (and it’s worth knowing up front) is that apple seeds don’t come true to type, meaning the seedling won’t be genetically identical to the parent variety. A Honeycrisp seed won’t grow into a Honeycrisp tree. It’ll grow into a unique apple that has some traits of the Honeycrisp mother, some traits of whatever pollinated her flower (probably another tree in the same orchard or yard), and some traits all its own.
For some people, that uncertainty is a deal-breaker. If you want a tree that produces a specific named variety, you need a grafted tree from a nursery, or you can graft scion wood from a known variety onto a seedling rootstock. For others (myself included) the uncertainty is exactly the appeal. You’re planting the next heirloom apple, or at the very least a tree that’s perfectly suited to your specific climate and soil because it sprouted there.
Choosing Apple Seeds to Plant
Not all apple seeds are equally good candidates for planting. Two factors matter most: the parent variety and the second parent (the unknown pollinator). The parent is whatever apple you’re saving seeds from. The second parent is whichever tree’s pollen actually pollinated those flowers, and that depends entirely on what trees were nearby when the apple was forming.
Seeds from a backyard tree where the only nearby pollinators are wild crab apples will mostly produce small, tart, crab-leaning fruit. Seeds from an apple bought at a heirloom orchard, where the trees are surrounded by other tasty heirloom varieties, are much more likely to produce something worth eating. We chose seeds from our absolute favorite varieties for this reason, hoping the unknown second parent was likely also something delicious.
The other thing to consider is whether the apple actually has fully mature seeds inside it. Cut an apple open and look at the seeds before bothering to save them. Mature seeds are dark brown, plump, and uniform. Pale, white, or shriveled seeds aren’t fully developed and won’t germinate. Most fully ripe apples have at least a few good seeds inside, but very small or unevenly developed apples may not. Newton Pippins, our favorite long-keeping heirloom, almost always have a full complement of plump dark seeds inside, which makes them an excellent candidate for seed saving.
How to Cold Stratify Apple Seeds
Apple seeds need cold stratification before they’ll germinate, which is the single most important thing to know about growing apples from seed. Stratification is just a fancy word for the chilling period that signals to the seed that winter has happened and it’s safe to sprout. Without it, the seeds simply won’t grow, no matter how warm and moist you keep the soil. This is the same dormancy mechanism that protects apple trees from sprouting their seeds in the fall when the parent fruit drops, only to die in the first hard frost.
To cold stratify apple seeds at home, you only need a few simple supplies:
- Mature, viable apple seeds (dark brown and plump)
- A folded paper towel
- A small zip-top plastic bag
- A few tablespoons of water
- Six weeks of refrigerator space
Rinse the seeds gently to remove any clinging fruit pulp, since residual sugar can encourage mold during the long fridge stay. Dampen the paper towel so it’s thoroughly moist but not dripping wet, lay the seeds in a single layer in the middle of the towel, and fold the towel over to cover them. Slide the wrapped seeds into the plastic bag, leave the bag open by about an inch for air exchange, and stash it in the back of the fridge where temperatures stay consistently around 35 to 40°F.
Check on the seeds every week or so to make sure the towel is still moist and to look for any signs of mold or sprouting. After about six weeks, you’ll typically see the first roots emerging from a few of the seeds, which is exactly what you want. Some seeds may take longer (8 to 10 weeks isn’t unusual) and a few stragglers may take even longer than that. Apple seeds have notoriously variable germination rates, with some sources citing rates as low as 30%. In our experience, more like 60 to 80% of well-stratified seeds will eventually germinate, but the exact rate depends on the variety, the age of the seeds, and how consistent the cold period was. Our complete guide to stratifying seeds covers the same general technique for cherry pits, peach pits, plum stones, and other temperate-climate fruit and tree seeds that share the cold-dormancy trait.
One quirk worth knowing: apples bought from a local orchard in winter or spring have often been kept under refrigeration for months, which means the seeds inside have already received a partial or complete cold stratification. Sometimes you’ll cut open a long-stored local apple and find a seed already sprouting inside the fruit, which is a little bit magical and means you can plant it directly without the paper towel step. Even with already-stratified seeds, an extra few weeks of paper-towel chilling won’t hurt them, so when in doubt, stratify.
How to Plant Apple Seeds (Step by Step)
Once the seeds have stratified for at least six weeks, planting them is straightforward. The two main options are direct sowing outdoors after your last spring frost, or starting them in pots indoors and transplanting later. I prefer pots, mainly because squirrels, mice, and voles are aggressive predators of apple seeds and small seedlings, and pots keep everyone honest.
For the pot method, use a one-gallon nursery pot with drainage holes (recycled black plastic ones from old nursery stock work perfectly) and fill it with a sterile seed-starting mix. Plant about a dozen seeds per pot, spaced evenly, pushed about half an inch deep into the soil. Cover gently, water in well, and place the pot somewhere warm and bright. Apple seeds emerge fastest at soil temperatures around 70 to 75°F, which is comfortable indoors but easy to achieve outdoors with a sunny location too.
Keep the soil consistently moist but not waterlogged, and watch for the first seedlings emerging in 1 to 2 weeks. If you’re new to starting plants from seed in general, my beginner’s guide to seed starting walks through the basics that apply to apple seeds just as much as to tomatoes and peppers, and the post on common seed starting mistakes covers the damping-off and overwatering issues that can take down young apple seedlings just as easily as any other plant.
For indoor planting where natural light is limited, supplemental DIY grow lights make a real difference. Apple seedlings can get leggy fast under weak light, with thin pale stems that struggle to hold up the leaves, so don’t skimp on light if you’re starting them on a windowsill in late winter.
How Long Do Apple Seeds Take to Germinate?
Properly cold-stratified apple seeds typically germinate in 1 to 2 weeks once they’re planted in warm, moist soil. Many seeds will already have visible roots starting to emerge from the paper towel before they’re even planted, and those will be the fastest to break the surface. Slow seeds may take 3 to 4 weeks, and the occasional straggler will take even longer, so don’t give up on a pot just because germination is uneven.
If a seed hasn’t germinated after a month at the right temperature, it probably needed more cold stratification time, was an immature or dud seed to begin with, or rotted in storage. Cold stratification followed by warm soil and consistent moisture is the formula. If germination is poor across an entire batch, the most common culprit is insufficient cold time before planting.
Caring for Apple Seedlings
Once your apple seedlings have emerged, the goal for the first year is steady, healthy growth and a strong root system. The seedlings should grow rapidly during their first season, putting on six inches to a foot of height by fall under good conditions. Keep them in their gallon pot for the first growing season, in a sunny location with at least six hours of direct sun per day, and water consistently to keep the soil moist but not waterlogged.
Common first-year problems include leggy growth (almost always low light, fix with more sun or grow lights), drooping or flopping stems (sometimes weak stems from low light, sometimes the top getting too heavy for the developing root system, support with a small stake), and yellowing leaves (typically overwatering or nutrient deficiency in long-used potting mix, ease back on water and consider a light dose of liquid fertilizer).
If you started a dozen seeds in a single pot and several have sprouted, you can either let them all grow together for the first season and divide them at transplant time, or thin to the strongest two or three early on. I tend to let them all grow in the shared pot through the first year and then carefully separate them in spring of the second year, which lets you pick the most vigorous candidates for permanent planting and gives weaker ones a chance to catch up.
Overwintering Apple Seedlings
This is the most common question I get from readers in the comments, especially from people in colder zones. The short answer is that potted apple seedlings in their first year are vulnerable to winter cold because their root systems aren’t established enough to handle the kind of deep ground freeze that mature apple roots can survive without trouble. The pot itself amplifies cold, since potted soil freezes solid much faster than ground soil does.
For first-winter potted seedlings in zone 5 or colder, the safest approach is to bring them into an unheated garage, basement, or cool indoor space for the coldest months. They want to stay cold (so they go through their natural dormancy) but not so cold that the roots freeze solid. Anywhere between 28 and 50°F works well, and the plants need very little water during this period since they’re dormant. A weekly check is enough to make sure the soil hasn’t dried out completely.
By the second year, the seedlings can usually be planted directly in the ground, where their roots will establish a real network in the surrounding soil and survive normal winter cold without protection. If you’re not ready to plant them out, a larger pot (3 to 5 gallons) buried up to the rim in a protected spot in the garden gives the same protection as in-ground planting through the second winter.
Transplanting Apple Seedlings
Apple seedlings are ready to plant out in their permanent location once they’re at least 4 to 6 inches tall, well-rooted, and the danger of hard frost has passed in your area. In Vermont, that usually means late May or early June for first-year seedlings. Wait until nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50°F, harden off the seedlings gradually over a week or two by exposing them to outdoor conditions for increasing periods, and then transplant on a cloudy day or in the late afternoon to reduce transplant shock.
Choose a permanent location with at least six hours of direct sun, well-drained soil, and enough space for a full-sized tree. Seedling apple trees grow on their own roots without the dwarfing effect of grafted rootstocks, which means they grow large. Plan on at least 20 feet between trees, and keep them well away from septic systems, foundations, and anywhere a 30-foot mature tree would be a problem in 20 years. Our guide to planting fruit trees covers the planting hole, soil amendments, and staking procedure that gives a young tree the best start.
Stake young seedlings with a soft loop of cloth or rubber tubing for the first year or two, since one casual step or a curious deer can take down a foot-tall sapling in seconds. Mulch the planting area with two to three inches of wood chips or shredded leaves, leaving a small gap right at the trunk to prevent rot. Water deeply once a week through the first growing season unless rainfall takes care of it for you.
How Long Until Apple Seedlings Bear Fruit?
Apple trees grown from seed typically take 6 to 10 years to bear their first fruit, though some bear earlier and others take longer. The exact timing depends on the genetics of the seedling, the growing conditions, the climate, and how vigorously the tree grows in its early years. Trees in good soil with plenty of sun will fruit faster than trees in poor or shaded conditions, and warm climates will see first fruit somewhat sooner than cold ones.
Surprisingly, that timeline isn’t really any longer than what you’d expect from a grafted nursery tree. Grafted trees often hit their first fruiting at year 5 to 8 after planting, but they spent some unknown number of years in nursery pots before that, getting root-bound and stressed in the process. A seedling planted directly in the ground after one year in a pot will often catch up to and surpass a nursery transplant by the third or fourth year, since it’s never had its growth interrupted by transplanting.
If you want fruit faster, the best approach is to graft scion wood from a known variety onto your seedling once it’s two or three years old. The seedling becomes the rootstock, the scion becomes the fruiting top, and you get fruit in just a few years instead of waiting for the natural seedling fruiting timeline. Our guide to grafting fruit trees walks through the technique, which is a satisfying skill to learn and lets you turn any seedling into a tree of a known variety.
Update from Our Orchard (Several Years Later)
It’s been a long time since I planted those original seedlings from our heirloom apple taste test, and I get asked enough about how they turned out that it’s worth a real update. The short version: most of our seedlings are now thriving young trees, several have started to fruit, and the early results have been about what the textbooks promise.
Of the seedlings that have fruited so far, we have a small number of really good apples (genuinely worth eating fresh), a larger number of middling ones (fine for sauce, drying, or cooking but nothing special), and one tree whose fruit is so tannic and astringent that the only thing it’s good for is hard cider. Cider makers actually need a portion of high-tannin apples in any blend, so even the spitter has earned its place in the orchard. None of our seedlings have produced fruit identical to either parent variety, which was expected, but several have produced fruit that’s distinctively their own and pleasant in its own way.
The genuinely surprising thing about the seedling experiment isn’t how the seedlings turned out. It’s how our grafted nursery trees did by comparison. Of the two dozen labeled grafted varieties we bought from a nursery the same year, more than half are not what they were labeled as. A tree sold to us as “Golden Russet” is producing insipid red apples. A summer-ripening variety is producing apples that taste like a potato in mid-October. We’ve since top-grafted several to known varieties using scion wood from a separate online nursery, and even some of those scion grafts came in mislabeled too, with the wrong variety appearing on the branches a few years later.
So the moral of the story, after a decade of running this experiment, is that there’s some uncertainty in any apple tree you plant unless you propagate from your own known parent. Seedlings are uncertain by design, and you know that going in, which I now think is more honest than the false predictability of a nursery label. The seedling apples are, in some ways, the most satisfying trees in the orchard, because every harvest is a discovery.
Other Fruits to Grow from Seed
Apples aren’t the only perennial fruit you can grow from seed, though they’re one of the most rewarding. Growing lemon trees from seed is another long-game project that produces a beautiful tree even before it fruits, and citrus actually comes mostly true to type from seed unlike apples. Strawberries from seed, rhubarb from seed, and asparagus from seed are all faster to harvest and pair well with seedling apples on the homestead.
Once your seedling apples are in the ground, they’ll eventually produce a real harvest, and you’ll want a plan for what to do with all those apples. Our guide to preserving apples covers more than thirty methods, and our most-loved apple recipes include canning apple pie filling, apple jam, apple butter, homemade apple cider vinegar, and of course hard cider for those tannic seedling apples that nobody’s going to eat fresh.
Apple Seed FAQs
Yes, a seedling apple tree will produce real apples once it matures, typically after 6 to 10 years. The fruit won’t be identical to the parent variety because apple seeds don’t come true to type, but the apples will be edible. Some seedlings produce excellent fruit, some produce middling fruit, and some produce fruit that’s better suited to cooking, sauce, or hard cider than fresh eating.
Apple seeds need a minimum of 6 weeks of cold stratification to break dormancy, with 8 to 10 weeks producing the best germination rates. Refrigerator temperatures around 35 to 40°F are ideal. Some seeds may sprout while still in the refrigerator, which is normal and a good sign that the chilling period was sufficient.
After cold stratification, apple seeds typically germinate in 1 to 2 weeks once planted in warm, moist soil at temperatures around 70 to 75°F. Many seeds will already have visible roots from the stratification period and will emerge fastest. Slower seeds may take 3 to 4 weeks, and germination across an entire batch is usually uneven.
Apple seeds are small, teardrop-shaped, and dark brown to nearly black when mature. They’re roughly a quarter inch long and a little less than that wide, with a smooth, slightly glossy seed coat. Pale brown, white, or shriveled seeds are immature and won’t germinate, so look for plump, dark, uniform seeds when selecting for planting.
Mature seedling apple trees are typically as cold-hardy as their parent varieties, often hardier since they’ve adapted to local conditions from the start. First-year potted seedlings are more vulnerable because their root systems aren’t established, so they should be overwintered in an unheated garage, basement, or other cool protected space until they can be planted in the ground. By the second year, most seedlings can survive normal zone 4 winters once planted out.
Yes, apple trees need cross-pollination from a different apple variety to produce fruit reliably. A single isolated apple tree usually produces little or no fruit. If you don’t have other apple trees nearby, plant at least two different seedlings together, or include a crab apple in your planting since crab apples bloom over a long period and pollinate most other apples effectively.
Most apple varieties need a period of winter chill (sustained temperatures below 45°F for hundreds of hours) to set fruit properly. In warm climates without a real winter, standard apple varieties usually produce poor harvests or no fruit at all. Low-chill apple varieties like Anna, Dorsett Golden, and Tropic Sweet can succeed in subtropical and Mediterranean climates, and seeds from those varieties will produce seedlings adapted to warm climates.
If you tried planting apple seeds, leave a ⭐ star rating on the how-to card and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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How to Plant Apple Seeds
Equipment
- Paper towel
- zip-top plastic bag
- refrigerator
- 1-gallon nursery pot with drainage holes
Ingredients
- Mature apple seeds, dark brown and plump
- water
- seed-starting mix
Instructions
- Cut open ripe apples and pick out the seeds. Choose plump, dark brown seeds and discard any that are pale, shriveled, or white, since those are immature and won't germinate. Rinse the seeds gently under cool water to remove all clinging fruit pulp, since residual sugar can encourage mold during the long fridge stay.
- Dampen a paper towel until it’s thoroughly moist but not dripping wet. Lay the seeds in a single layer on one half of the towel and fold the other half over to cover them completely.
- Slide the wrapped seeds into a zip-top plastic bag, leaving the bag open about an inch for air exchange. Place the bag in the back of the refrigerator where temperatures stay consistently between 35 and 40°F.
- Check the seeds every week or so to make sure the paper towel stays moist and to look for any signs of mold or sprouting. After about six weeks of cold stratification, many seeds will have visible roots beginning to emerge, which is the signal that they’re ready to plant.
- Fill a one-gallon nursery pot with sterile seed-starting mix. Plant about a dozen stratified seeds roughly half an inch deep, spaced evenly around the pot. Water gently until the soil is evenly moist but not waterlogged.
- Place the pot in a warm, bright location with soil temperatures around 70 to 75°F. Seedlings should emerge from the soil within one to two weeks, with seeds that already had visible roots emerging fastest.
- Once the seedlings are 4 to 6 inches tall and nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50°F, transplant them outside to a permanent sunny location with at least 20 feet of space between trees. Stake young seedlings for the first year or two, mulch around the base with wood chips or shredded leaves leaving a small gap at the trunk, and water deeply once a week through the first growing season.
Once your apple seedlings are settling into the orchard, the homestead calendar keeps turning. Our guide to heirloom apple varieties is a good companion read if you’re starting to think about which named varieties to graft onto your seedling rootstocks down the road, and the year-round fruit orchard guide covers how to plan an orchard that produces from June through deep winter.
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I pulled a seed out of an apple I had just eaten. Stuck it into a pot. About 2 weeks later it was sprouting!
Yeah ,I have been trying to ask this particular question here,,,can an apple seed be planted in a pot after consumption and leave it,,will it grown or it needs to be dried before it can grow, like what u just said now that after eaten an apple ,u remove the seed and u plant it and it grow within 2 weeks,so pls I need more explanation concerning that, because I am preparing an apple seed for planting ,,but still drying them as Instructed and inquiries.,,I will appreciate if I can see ur reply.thanks
It’s not so much about drying the apple seed as it is the cold stratification process. In nature the seeds are dormant in the winter time and then when spring comes and the ground warms up then the seed starts to germinate. If the seed has been at room temperature you want to cold stratify the seeds. The specific instructions are in the post.
So question…we tested a bunch of seeds. We put some in the refrigerator a week ago and some in a wet papertowel/bag left in the garage. In both cases, about half of the seeds have started to germinate. The ones from the garage, we potted in soil and are growing. Can we plant the germinating ones from the refrigerator too? Or should we continue to leave them in the refrigerator for 5 more weeks? Will seeds do better overall in either case, or once they start germinating, does it not matter?
As soon as they start germinating they should go into soil. The cold period is just to get them to break dormancy, as soon as that happens they’ll be happier in soil. Looks like all your seeds were already in cold storage inside the apple, which is normal this time of year since apples are refrigerated all winter for spring sales.
I recently started growing a few of my own apple trees! When do you think pruning should start though?
Early on they just need to be trained, perhaps trimmed to encourage the shape and growth form you want. They don’t need to be meaningfully prunes until they’re 5-8 years old.
I had 2 trees that I started and planted them near one another thinking that one might die. Well, one didn’t die and then I thought I will pull the smallest one and replant it in the spring. It did okay inside the house all winter but now it has lost it leaves. I wondering that I shouldn’t have kept inside all winter and it spent the summer and fall outside. Did I mess it up? I will go ahead and plant and hopefully it will recover. So the question is when is the best time to plant if it has been inside all summer, fall and winter?
I am just now seeing your comment. How did your tree do?
I have the same question. If we plant seed in the summer, then the tree is about 10” tall, should I keep it in all winter and plant in the spring? Or should it star inside another year?
If it has been kept inside I would not just put it directly out in really cold weather. If it has been outside and you are able to plant it then I would go ahead and plant it in the fall and allow it to gradually acclimate to the colder weather.
I just read this and didn’t know that you needed to put them in fridge. first. I started min in plastic container in my green house window over my kitchen sink. They are about 3 inches tall now and in pots with potting soil. After they get bigger how do we prune them so they go tall and straight. do we remove the bottom leaves and when? Thank you.
If they’re growing, no need to remove anything at all. Allow them to grow out in pots until they’re big enough that you feel comfortable transplanting them. Some of ours were plenty big by the fall of their first year, others grew a lot slower.
Hi,I lives in Nigeria and really likes apple fruit.We have a hot tempreture and don’t know if apple tree can grow here
My mom has the same problem in California in the Desert. There are some varieties that are called “low chill” apples and can grow in very hot climates without a winter freeze. It may still be too hot there for apples, but I don’t know too much about the climate in Nigeria. This article may be helpful to you: https://ucanr.edu/sites/urbanhort/files/80158.pdf
Hi, I also lives in Nigeria
I started the growing of apple tree since 2018 here in Nigeria which was successful I now have 4 stands of fully grown apple tree
Yeah ,,nice meeting u here ,,am aiso a Nigerian,and am planning to plant an apple through it seed ,just started ,,so I need more explanation on how it can be grown.thanks ,I will appreciate to see ur response.
Could you do this same method with pears?
Yup, works just fine with pears too.
Hi. It is near the end of July and I have a Macintosh Apple tree from seed that is about three to four inches tall. I live in Ontario Canada the Ottawa area. My question is where do I put it for our cold water. It is in recycling coconut planter. Do I plant it before winter or should I keep it in the house or would the shed be better
If it is only 3 or 4 inches tall, it may be best to keep it indoors for the winter and then take it out in the spring when the temperatures aren’t so harsh.
So how tall should it be before going in the ground?
I think if you kept it indoors through the winter that it should be good to plant out in the spring. Then it has plenty of time to get well established before winter comes.
My daughter took 5 seeds from an ambrosia apple that had been sitting in a basket on the counter, she ate the apple and directly planted them in a small soil pot, this was just before xmas. Just after New Year’s day she had 5 sprouts. They’re growing rather nicely in partial sun. I came looking for a reasonable estimate of when she’ll see a fruiting tree because honestly I didn’t expect a single sprout.
With good care, she’s about 3 years away from the potted trees they sell at the nursery. For fruit though, likely 5-10 years. Some varieties bear fruit earlier than others, but about 8 years is a good average.
Same here, just puts seeds in tiny starter pots in the Spring and had 4 of 6 pop up. Left them outside in the hot sun and watered every day and they sprouted. I put one in the ground and brought the others inside now for Winter. Leaves are loosing their color so just trying to figure out how to keep them alive indoors until Spring again.
I planted a seed a couple of years ago. It lost its leaves this past fall and looks like it is regrowing them in time with the other trees outside. I think it’s about 3 years old (sieve brain!) so I suppose it’s ready to harden off and plant outside? Soil? Sun? Moisture levels? Thank you! (Also have 1.5yr grapefruit, 1 yr. lemon seedlings, and a bunch of 4311 apples sprouts (generic pink apple code?))
Yup, time to harden off (slowly) and plant it outdoors. Full sun ideally (unless you’re in somewhere absurdly hot like the Mojave). They like moderate amounts of water, and won’t tolerate swampy/wet spots. Our soil is clay with a high water table, so we have to work pretty hard to find a well-drained spot for apple trees. Poorly drained soil is the one thing that really kills them, so watch out for that. Best of luck!
Have 10 so far with about 4 to 6 sets of leaves, Thanks for the tips
I’m not sure if I have space for apple trees, but this sounds like fun. I saved some seeds from really tasty apples I ate this past Fall, so let’s see what happens, right? I also think I’ll try Ann Ralph’s method of growing little trees. Any future trees and I are going to be much happier if I don’t have to climb up and down ladders to prune and harvest.
I’m really looking forward to starting apples from seed, but I live in the southern hemisphere, so it is the end of summer here now. Should I keep the seeds in the refrigerator until early next spring or store them until the middle of winter and then put them in the refrigerator? They are seeds from an heirloom apple.
Thank you
I’d put them in the refrigerator until seed starting time in your area. Pull them out and pot them up whenever you’d normally start tomatoes indoors.
Interesting. I ate an apple 1bout 6 days ago. I put the seeds in a small container with a small amount f water. 8 out of 10 seeds have already sprouted!!
This time of year (mid-winter) the apples themselves have been in cold storage for months. They’re already stratified for you in storage at the apple warehouse, so they’re ready to sprout!
How do you prevent mold from starting while cold stratifying? We tried that with peach pits in the fridge and changed the damp towel out regularly but it still kept trying to mold.
Kept just barely damp, and with the top of the bag open a bit, I haven’t had a problem with mold. I know some people use a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide to wet the paper towels when mold is a problem, but I haven’t used that technique myself. I’m sure a quick search would help you find the right concentration.
Very good advice I have started 2 apple trees of my own out of seeds.they germinated very well.i have already transplanted the into a cup with soil.they are doing well.they ha e actually sprouted out and I have 2 very green growing stems.i will let them get a bit bigger before trans planting into our garden along with our pineapple trees.
Best way I found is to crack the peach pit open and get the seed inside and place that in a damp paper towel and put in a ziplock bag or Tupperware container and into the fridge until roots appear.
Cinnamon will prevent mold from growing.
My son brought home a little brown cup that started growing his apple tree we have had it a bout a month or so and its growing like crazy. Its winter in VA, USA and I dont know anything about moving plants out of the cup into the ground..can anyone help I dont want to kill the apple tree
Keep it indoors and wait until spring, around when you plant your tomatoes. It’ll need to be hardened off, which means gradually introducing it to the outdoors. Natural conditions, even just full sunlight when it’s used to indoor light can burn the leaves. Start by putting it out a few hours a day in a protected area, then gradually longer. More specifics here: https://www.burpee.com/gardenadvicecenter/areas-of-interest/seed-starting/hardening-off-your-seedlings/article10355.html
I have a couple of apple trees that came up volunteer from seed from store bought apples so I have no idea what kind they might be. Is it true that large orchards use Crab apples to pollinate their trees? I wouldn’t care if they were 1/2 Crab apple as I believe they make good cooking apples and make the best jelly.
Sometimes large orchards interplant a small number of crabapples to help with pollination, but really there’s no telling where the bee went. It could be any tree in the orchard, and some varieties are even self-fertile. Even still, you never know how the genes will all shake out in the end. I hope they’re delicious and good luck with them!
Do you have to have two different apple trees to pollinate each other. Is there any chance that an apple tree can have apples with out another apple tree of a different kind?
If it is not a self-pollinating variety then it will need another apple tree in order to cross-pollinate.
Thanks for the information, my name is Charlesetta and my grandson want to try and Apple plant.
Thank you so much for these instructions! The apple tree my husband’s grandmother planted in the yard of her farmhouse, which is now our farmhouse is starting to die. I’ve set aside several of the best apples from this year’s crop and was trying to figure out the best way to grow a few trees that can replace the original tree and be given to her great grandchildren for their yards. Not knowing if the tree will make it through another winter, I want to give those seeds the very best opportunity to survive!!
Using a seed from the tree will NOT give you the same apple variety. If you want the SAME apple, you must cut a scion (a one year old new shoot, or the new growth from last year) and graft that scion onto another rootstock. IT IS VERY EASY TO DO!!! You can often fin a “County Extension Service” that teaches grafting classes each spring, OR the expert there–working for the county–will show you how for free. There are lots of YouTube videos also that show “bench grafting,” or “whip-and-tongue” grafting, & etc. Again, IT’S EASY, as long as you have a good sharp knife and know how to use it safely. You need to take the scion from the tree you want to duplicate while the tree is still dormant and the buds have not begun to swell. Put that scion in a ziplock baggie and keep in the fridge that does not have any apples in it. It will last a couple months. And to find a “rootstock,” I would suggest Raintree Nursery (online), for buying an “Antonovka” full sized, long lived tree, or a Bud 118 rootstock for faster growing, almost full-sized tree. Order soon, before there all gone for the year! I would recommend getting at least two, in case one doesn’t take or you have some unforeseen difficulty. You will want to practice making the cuts and grafting with pieces of willow or other scions from the tree before making the actual grafts with those more perfect scion pieces. Here is a link for grafting a “modified whip-and-tongue,” in case your scion and the rootstock are different sizes. https://youtu.be/eTD33aGqjhA GOOD LUCK!!
My in laws have two trees close to one another with no other nearby apple trees. We love the apples off these trees. Giving it a go with the seeds from apple seeds off these two trees (hoping their proximity gives us genetically close fruit) and plan to plant two of the trees in our yard in similar proximity for hopefully same result. Thanks for the guidance on how to do this. Seeds have been in fridge 5 weeks already. Hopefully we’ll be growing some indoor seedling this winter ready for late spring planting.
I have three healthy seedlings growing in a pot in the house until late spring! Once they get larger, I will transplant each into its own larger pot to give it growth space until outdoor planting.
Thanks for the advice Ashly,just put my apple seeds in the moist paperwork,in a ziplock in the bottom drawer in the fridge,I’m excited this will be my first attempt…wish my seeds luck!
Good luck!
Hi Ashley
I put an apple seed in dirt in a pot in my house and I have a 3 inch seedling. It’s winter and I want to keep it healthy so in spring I can plant it outside. Is there anything I should be doing besides watering to keep it strong through the winter?
Thanks
Nancy
Nothing, in particular, just keep them in a sunny spot!
My question is that, can this particular plant grow in Nigeria?
Sadly, I don’t think so. Apple trees need a cool dormant winter period and they grow best in zones 3 to 8. California is zone 9, and they have trouble growing there but you can make it work with heat-tolerant or low chill varieties, and by shading them and putting ice blocks on the soil in the winter months. It looks like at least according to the internet, Nigeria is zone 11/12…that’s much hotter and I’m not sure you’ll be able to make it work. It’s less about the heat in mid-summer, and more about the fact that it doesn’t cool off in the winter for dormancy.
I have already started to grow Pinks variety, started as in paper towel, but never started in the fridge, reported the 3 of them in 8 inch pots now the sizes are quite good 14″ have got them outside in pots so fingers crossed 🤞
That’s great!
How’s the tree going so far? 🙂
Ditto! Just did the same! So exciting!