How To Grow Fruit Trees From Seeds - Grow Your Own Citrus

Have you ever tried growing fruit trees from seeds? We love doing so, and it is such a rewarding experience to see the little trees grow taller every year. We have yet to harvest our own fruit, but we suspect we are not far off.

How To Grow Fruit Trees From Seeds:

1. Research what fruit trees are good for your growing zone
2. Eat the fruit - local fruit is best, but give it a go with whatever your heart desires.
3. Clean the seeds 
4. Plant the seeds in a container - you can use fresh or dried seeds
5. Put the container in a place, where it gets indirect sunlight.
6. Once the small seedlings appear move the container to a sunny window
7. Re-pot the seedlings when they are about 3 inches tall
8. Move the fruit trees outdoors when they are at least 3 - 4 inches tall
9. Wait to plant them directly in the ground until they are at least a foot tall for best results.
10. Citrus trees grow well in zone 8 - 11, and they do not seem to be bothered by a few cold nights, although they prefer temperatures about 60 degrees. 
11. If you are in zone 4 - 7, you can still grow citrus trees in pots that you can bring inside to overwinter in a sun room or near a sunny window. We recommend key limes, dwarf citrus, and kumquats for growing in pots. 
12. Fertilize your citrus trees with an organic citrus fertilizer every 1 - 2 months during spring and summer and every 2 - 3 months during the dormant fall and winter periods.
13. We also fertilize our citrus trees with banana peels cut into small strips as well as cut up citrus peels from the fruits we eat, and we provide the trees with nutrient-rich compost from our backyard compost bin a few times a year.

Yesterday, Earth Day 2020, seemed to be the perfect time for my daughter and I to plant some more seeds, so we planted some key lime seeds from the cutest key limes we had bought at the grocery store. We had to leave our small key lime tree behind, when we moved from South Florida, because there wasn't enough room in the moving truck for our trees, so we surely hope these little seeds will give us at least one new key lime tree.


Since we are in North East Florida, where a lot of people have citrus trees in their back yards, we are always planting new citrus seeds.

In the near future we will have a semi-blank canvas to fill at our piece of land, which is currently wood land. We dream of having an orchard and an orange grove, picking our own berries and growing most of our produce at home.

Planting fruit trees is expensive though, which is why we have been planting fruit trees from seeds ever since we purchased our current home almost four years ago.

Propagating fruit trees is another great way to grow your own fruit trees, but this means you need to have access to the fruit trees that you want to propagate and that we do not.

Instead we plant avocado pits, mango pits, and all kinds of citrus seeds.

Here are some of the fruit trees we have growing on our small .10 of an acre lot, where our current house sits on
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There's not much room to plant on, but until we get our building lot cleared and filled, we cannot begin to transplant over the trees to The Land.

A lemon tree about six months old

We think this might be a kumquat, but we've lost track. 

This citrus tree is about 2 1/2 years old, and it might be a clementine or perhaps a Meyer lemon tree, but only time will tell.

This is our oldest citrus tree - a lemon tree that is about 3 1/2 years old.

The trees in our small backyard do not have it easy. There is a lot of shade, as we have some huge trees above us, but it does get some early morning sun. This citrus tree has suffered lots of broken branches from boys playing ball and the dog chasing after squirrels, but it is still going strong, and the leaves smell very lemony.

We have lots of small citrus trees growing inside in the window as well as more outside, wherever we can find a sunny spot there will be a tree growing. It is easy to get discouraged, but whenever we doubt the future of our fruit trees grown from seed, we visit the Survival Gardener's blog.

You can learn more about the Survival Gardener's experience with How To Grow Fruit Trees from Seeds here.

Have you tried growing fruit trees from seeds? If so, what has your experience been like, and have you had a piece of fruit from your tree yet? We'd love to hear from you...