Just for fun, I wanted to see how far I can grow peaches in Singapore!
For any hard crust seed, it is better to remove the hard outer covering before sowing.
Personally, I like to check the condition of the seeds too before I sowed them.
Our fruits, after all, were not harvested fresh on our land, and shipping may rendered some damage to the quality of fruits and seeds.
It is a good thing too because as I discovered, not all pits have seeds.
A nutcracker was used to break the hard shell.
Gardening sites online recommended drying the pit first for easier removal of the seed as the shell would be more brittle.
However, we did not dry ours before applying the nutcracker and managed to break part of the crust and sowed the seed without totally removing it from the crust.
We sneaked a peek at the seed on the 10th day by uncovering the soil and tried to dislodge it.
When the seed did not budge and seem “tied” to the soil, we knew there were roots holding it down.
The first leaf emerged from the soil on January 26 2016, the 19th day after sowing the seed.
Most of the hard crust had split open.
Seed leaf was pushing through the soil to reach the light.
The plant seems to grow faster on sunny days.
A thicker stem emerged with thick long leaves.
In 2015, for most of my cool seasoned plants, ice was used to water these plants during the warmer days in Singapore.
The higher the temperature, the more ice was needed.
If the plants do not like too much watering, ice packs or ice bottles are used instead.
Here are the various ways I chilled soil in Singapore!
In April, the seedling was 70 days old and 14cm tall.
Update – Did not survive, unable to continue tracking this plant.
Summary of Donut Peaches Requirements:
- A big pot with a diameter of at least 3 feet for better roots development
- Depending on varieties, it may take 3 -5 years from seed to harvest day
- Well-drained medium of 1 part each of sand/peat/compost/perlite or equivalent
- Does not like wet soil
- Full sun
- Need a high Phosphorous fertilizer
- Self-pollinating
- May need 100 hours minimum of chilled soil at 7 degrees C (!!) to grow flowers 🙂 – Will worry about this later 🙂
Wow Victoria. U r amazing with fruity plants. Green fingers .
Hi, how’s your peach tree now? I am about to plant peach seed and glad that I read your post!
Hi Laura,
My peach tree did not survive a year. Not sure why as it was well one day and then quickly decline the next.
Wish you the best with yours. Victoria
My peach tree now about 9 years old. But because I think it was planted in pot (I stay in HDB Flat with corridor restriction), therefore it not really grow quite well. During its 5 years old, it start flowering (but only 1 or 2, and unable to bay fruits). Before that, I totally got 7 full grow tree (5 year old tree), but slowly one by one dried up… (sad) Now balance only 2.. the younger one now about 7 years old and did flowered last 2 year.. (also only 1 or 2 flowers each time each year).
I will like to post some photo in here, but am a “computer-stupid” not sure how to do it…
Just for info, now presently I also and only balance 2 plum tree (One about 7 years old and 4 years old)… 1 apricot tree… 1 fragrant Tree… 1 apple tree… the rest are those zhap.ba.lang trees like guava, Fo.Shou(佛手)… (my corridor almost been used-up… Keekeekee)
Is amazing ! Certainly more patience than myself to grow them for so long. I can’t wait for fruits beyond 2 years!
Frankly speaking, I did seeded the peach tree a lots (almost everytime I seeded when after eaten the peach), but success rate was very low (about 10% rooted, after rooted only 30% make it to 1 year old… than about 25% make it to 5 years old… Anyway I just do it for interest…)
3 year ago, I actually got 7 peach trees, but that time because of the “Housing Flat Painting”, I sheft here and there the pots(sometime, few days without sunlight) + the paint (suspect toxic to plants) slowly one by one dried up…
Same to my plum trees, 7 tree about 5 years old and now left 2 trees…
Ya… for your info, I did not used ice to chill my peach tree when it young, but I used spray water… The soil try not to be too wet, it really need well drain but also cannot be dry…
Anyway the most difficult for me to plant was the Blueberry… From my first seeding till today, I took almost 7 years… So far only “1” able to make it to “6” months old (Now still not “Dry-up” yet Haahaahaa….) So compare to the peach tree, still consist “quite easy”… Keekeekee…