Grow Your Own Orange Tree - Part 2

Tweet

Grow Your Own Orange Tree - Part 2 - This is a follow-up post that might be useful to those people who want to grow their own orange tree but who may not be allowed to receive several free seeds sent from my house to their house. Sometimes it is against the law to ship plants and plant seeds from my country to your country. So these directions are provided here so that you can easily save some orange seeds removed from fresh oranges you purchase at the market and use those seeds to grow your own orange trees. Simple enough to do... Wash the "goo" off of the outside of several orange seeds. With your fingernail (or however you like to do things) remove the outer hard shell from each seed. Try not to damage the soft seed material below the outer shell. If you mess up and cut into the soft green plant material below the hard shell, toss that seed and try again with the next seed. Place the shelled seeds (actually the "unborn" seedlings) onto a clean paper towel, fold the towel over the seeds, and carefully slide the folded towel with the seeds into a plastic bag or into another container that you can later seal. Dampen the paper towel. Place the bag (or container) of seeds in any convenient place and try to keep the temperature there at a comfortable room temperature. If the temperature is comfortable for you, it is also comfortable for your seeds. When the shell-free seeds germinate, plant the seedlings, roots-down, in some pots containing a "good" planting mixture. As you can see from the photograph, above, the seeds begin with their sprouting very quickly once you remove the outer hard shells and keep them damp. Keep the potting soil moist - but not soaking wet. When the orange tree seedlings get bigger and stronger, transplant them into your garden outdoors or into larger pots indoors. You can also simply stick your orange seeds straight from fresh oranges into potting soil or into the garden. If you leave the hard seed shell on and just plant the whole seed, it may take up to a month to germinate and produce a seedling - that is, if it germinates at all. As can be seen from the photograph, above, removing the hard shell really does speed things along rather nicely. Image source - Gus Kilthau Link - (Plant Your Own Orange Tree - Part One).