Planting Peach Seeds. 1.18.22

 These are seeds that I stratified in the refrigerator.  The source peaches were from a tree that I also grew from a seed, that one from the variety "Oregon Curl Free".  The original tree died from canker but was not bothered by Peach Leaf Curl, the "leprosy" that usually kills most peach trees here.  Those peaches are delicious, nice size, yellow clingstone, great fresh, in pie, or canned.  The tree is highly productive and never bothered by peach leaf curl.

It might seem like it would take a long time for a seedling peach tree to produce fruit.  However in my experience, it takes about three or four years.  Almost as fast as a bought tree but no issues with the rootstock possibly being a problem (such as susceptibility to canker or carrying a nursery-borne virus).

The peaches ripened mid August.  I scrubbed some pits, wrapped in wet newspaper, and kept them in a closed jar in the refrigerator until a week ago. 

The pits are hard as rocks (maybe that's why they're called "stones" ha ha). I know peaches can be grown by planting the whole pit, but maybe they benefit by splitting the pit and removing the seed (see below).  That's what I did before. I used a hammer, tapping with some force on the pit edge against the concrete garage floor. A couple of seeds got smashed. Here are some nice looking ones.

To my eyes, these look nice and firm and viable. I planted six in seed starting medium in a seedling six pack.

Cover with more seed starting medium, water, label, place on seed warming mat.  The label is important.  Sometimes I think my mind is a sieve.

Will they grow? Who knows. I think, maybe.

[On removing hard shell from the seed.  Long ago when mastodons and wooly camels bellowed their forlorn songs across the frozen Pleistocene Savannas, I read an article in the Rodale era Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine describing how much better some seedlings grow if their outer coats are removed before planting the seeds.  The rationale was that the sprouts consume considerable energy breaking open the hard coat.  If the coat is removed, that energy goes into a burst of growth.  Why would I remember that after all these decades?]