The Trick to Growing Plums from Pits

Learn how to germinate a plum pit and you'll grow thousands of future plums!

Today I share how we germinate plums via the method of "stratifying." If you stratify plum pits in the fridge, they'll sprout in a few months. Today you'll hear why you should grow fruit trees from seed and see how baby plum trees can be easily started at home, with no special requirements.

[agapefield]

❤when I was a little girl my Dad took a grafting class and started grafting pecans, fruit trees, citrus...he would put his slips in the crisper drawer of the fridge til he could be off on a weekend to actually graft. My Mom was a very petite & fiesty Cajun lady. She got aggravated at having no room for the veggies and went and bought a really nice much bigger refrigerator to replace the old one in the kitchen. She put the old one in the garage next to the deep freeze and told Daddy. That old one's for you to put your sticks and seeds in...not in the house...He was so happy!

[CamoJan]

I never thought about looking for discarded Christmas poinsettia plants before! Guess we could be looking for every holiday plants for their soil now! Thanks for a great tip!

[lovesspin]

Years ago, when one of our daughters and her family were living in Las Vegas, her little girl planted ONE pomegranate seed in their flower bed in the backyard. It grew and they had LOADS of pomegranates!

[naty-dere-]

I feel joy when a plant grows from seed. I also have peach fruiting in less than two years.Love and respect from Ethiopia Africa.

[ursamajor]

Yup. I plant every seed I find. It's fun to see what happens.

[jeancampbell]

In South Africa we call it earth or soil. Dirt is such a strange name to me or such a life giving substance.. I love your videos.

[melanieallen]

Go chase a stick!!😂talking2 the dog!!😅good video!

[mariakasstan]

Thank you so much for growing from seed. The really crucial aspect of this is that qualities like climate adaptation and disease resistance are passed on genetically while orchards planted with rows of grafted clones have little innate variation in what environmental stresses they can tolerate. This tends to lead to more pesticide use which is not healthy for people or the environment.

[redbeard]

It's funny, I did this same thing this year. On some property that has been in my wifes family for at least 7 generations now, there are wild plum trees. This past September she picked a small bag full and dug up one small tree that was sprouting near a larger plum. We put 7 pits in the refrigerator in mid September and planted them out before the sprouted in early January. We now have 4 sprouting and under grow lights until we plant them out. I have the wonderful dilemma of figuring out where to plant several plum trees in my backyard.

[midwestribeye]

I'm actually checking my seeds/pits that I'm stratifying when I saw your video! The timing is so funny! My Bubble Gum plum pit sprouted. Yay! Who knows how it will turn out. Life and gardening is always an adventure!

[GrandmomZoo]

❤ you always make me smile, as well as teach me stuff. 😊

[thehillsidegardener]

We have so many volunteers from our plum and cherry trees which I have left for the last few years instead of mowing over like I used to. I can't wait to see if they produce anything worthwhile, but even if they don't they are incredibly vigorous so to my mind will make great rootstock to graft a known variety onto so, free trees, win-win.

[DixieLivingHomestead]

So grateful you posted this. We collected a bunch of seeds and pits this fall and are eager to see how hybrid cherry plums and plumcots do down here in Lower Alabama.

[icugysz]

#28!
Guilty...I have a refrigerator dedicated to seeds. Pro tip DTG, buy a cheap concrete mixer at HF. It is worse every penny! Mixxing potting soil is a breeze now.
😀🌱🐢

[agapefield]

❤that's how we started several fruits from seeds (mostly native fruit trees and some non-native.) I like the idea of reusing potting soil.

[jholcomb]

Our neighbor down the street has a wild plum tree and they just let them fall and rot on the sidewalk. Think I will grab some and try this! NC FL, zone 9a.

[sastuntgirl]

I’ve been inspired by your earlier videos to grow all sorts of fruit from seed. Got nectarines this summer from a volunteer tree (in a pot that we almost threw out when we moved house because we weren’t even sure if was a tree 😮)

So far we’ve got peaches, nectarines, apricots, litchis, pears and more in pots to grow big enough to plant out (they’re almost all 1 year old now). I’ve given so many away to other gardeners. Spreading food trees!

[diablominero]

You should look into growing cherry plums (Prunus cerasifera). It's another small plum, similar to American plum, but it has somewhat different temperature and soil requirements so it might be better suited to your area. Feral cherry plums are pretty common in the Pacific northwest.

[ravenpineshomestead]

I'm stratifying American plumb right now! The strains here are a mile above domestic plumbs we find in our grocery store in terms of flavor!

[Blynn-mddx]

David...went into garden yesterday and found a plum tree pruning that I had stuck in the ground last fall...completely forgot about it... It is growing amazingly well!