Growing your own apples makes such good sense. An established tree can yield literally hundreds of beautifully crisp, juicy apples every year. Some varieties of apple store really well, you can freeze the flesh, even juice them. Just think how many apples you could be picking from just one tree – it’s exciting, right?
Each of those apples contain pips that can be used to grow more trees. Growing your own apple tree this way is huge fun! I’m going to show you how to grow an apple tree from a tiny pip – before sharing a far better way to get superior apples, and much quicker too!
Planting Apple Seeds
To grow apples from pips, we need to start with ripe apples. That way, we know that the pips inside are fully developed and ready to go.
But before we sow them, we need to chill them. Apple trees need a period of cold weather to set flowers and fruits for the following season, and the same goes for their seeds – they need chilling to trigger them to sprout. The fancy term for this is ‘cold stratification’, and it will break the dormancy of these pips and stir them into life. It’s nature’s way of ensuring the seeds don’t germinate until winter’s over.
You could just sow them directly outside to expose them to cold temperatures, but a more controlled way to do this is to refrigerate your pips. Germination can be patchy, so even if you only want one or two seedlings I’d suggest treating at least 20 seeds to make up for any losses.
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Pop apple seeds onto damp paper towel then refrigerate to simulate winter temperatures
Wash the pips clean, then lay them on a sheet of damp paper towel. Fold over the paper towel a few times then pop it into a sealable bag, leaving a little gap for air exchange. This can now go into fridge for six to eight weeks. Check on the pips every now and then, and give the paper towel a little spray of water if it starts to dry out.
Once the chilling period is over you can sow the pips. You may find that some of the pips have started to sprout in the fridge already, the tiny root poking through the seed coating. Choose a pot that’s the appropriate size for the amount of seeds you have. Fill it up most of the way with potting mix, then sow several of the stratified pips across the surface before covering them over with more potting mix to a depth of around 0.5in (1cm). After watering, move the pot to somewhere cozy and warm to germinate. A temperature around 73ºF (23ºC) should see those apple seedlings pop up pretty quickly, within about two weeks.
Grow the seedlings on to around 4in (10cm) high, then carefully separate them out and transplant them into individual pots. Grow them on until the weather is consistently warm, and they can be planted into the ground.
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Grafted apple trees are smaller and easier to manage and harvest from
The Problem with Growing Apples From Seed
Growing from pips is a fun project, but the results are unpredictable. It’s like playing the lottery – you may strike it lucky, but chances are the fruit won’t resemble those from the parent plants much, and will probably be a lot smaller and less tasty than what you hoped for. This is because the pollen that fertilised the flower may be from a completely different variety to the tree that bore the fruit, creating an unpredictable cross of the two.
Then there’s the size of the eventual tree. Most ready-to-plant fruit trees are made up of two parts: the top part, or scion, which is a cutting from the variety you’re looking to grow, and the rootstock onto which the top part is grafted. The rootstock determines the ultimate size of the tree, which is usually a lot smaller and more well-behaved than would otherwise be the case. Dwarfing rootstocks like this make it possible to grow fruit trees in much, much smaller spaces, even neatly against walls and fences. Without the benefit of a dwarfing rootstock, apples from pips are likely to grow into a big, sprawling thing, anywhere up to 30ft (10m) tall and wide – that’s big!
And then there’s the time you’ll have to wait to pick the fruits. Apples from pips take up to a decade to reach fruiting stage, whereas with a part-grown, grafted sapling you’ll usually only have to wait two to four years, depending on the type of rootstock and the age of the plant you’ve purchased.
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Get apples faster by planting a young tree
A Faster, Easier Way to Grow Apples
So if you want to give yourself a head start and enjoy a guaranteed result, grab yourself a grafted tree! This is more expensive than growing from pips, but on the flip side you’ll enjoy your own delicious apples far sooner.
If you only want to grow one apple tree, opt for a self-fertile variety, which isn’t reliant on nearby apple trees being in flower at the same time to pollinate it. It will set fruit on its own, although you will get more fruit with a compatible pollination partner.
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Plant your apple tree in the ground at the same level it was in its pot
How to Plant an Apple Tree
Like any tree, autumn is a great time to get this in the ground, but you may need to wait til spring if your autumns are very cold where you live. Pick a sunny spot for your tree, and dig the planting hole. Aim for a hole width of around three times the width of the pot, and a similar depth to the pot itself. Once you’ve excavated the soil, use a fork to stab at the soil on the sides and bottom of the hole. This should make it a lot easier for the roots to get out and down into the surrounding soil.
Take the apple out of its pot and soak the rootball in a bucket of water for an hour to really wet it through before planting. Then place the apple tree in the hole, aiming for the top of the rootball to be at the same level as the ground. You can lay a tree stake or a bamboo cane horizontally on the soil across the top of the hole to check that the plant is at the correct level. It’s important not to cover the union or graft between the rootstock and the scion, which you will see as a bulge on the stem.
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A tree stake will help support the young tree while it puts down roots
Gently pull out some of the roots at the sides to encourage the roots to grow out into the soil, helping it to establish a little quicker. Fill the soil back in around the rootball, and firm it down with your boot as you go.
It’s a good idea to support your new tree with a stake to make sure that the wind or the weight of fruits doesn’t cause it to topple. Hammer in a stake at a 45-degree angle next to the tree to avoid spearing the roots, then add a rubber tree tie. Keeping the tied point quite low will hold the base of the tree and its roots nice and steady but still allow the top half to sway about a bit, which encourages the tree to root in and grow strongly.
Water the plant in to help settle the soil down around the roots, and finally, add mulch of organic matter such as garden compost, making sure not to pile it against the trunk. And that’s it, job done!
