How to sprout apple seeds

First things first, save all your apple pips/seeds.

Apple pips/seeds come out cleanly with no flesh attached, so just cut open each core and pop out the pips. Over several days or a week, place all the pips you gather into a small plastic or glass container and keep the container in a dry place.

There is no need to keep the pips in the dark; as long as they are kept dry, they will not sprout.

Once you have gathered enough pips, fill a seed tray with seed raising mix. Seed raising mix is a lighter mix than regular potting soil and is a good medium for sprouting apple pips in. It can be purchased at garden supply stores or you can make your own using instructions such as these.

Now to plant your pips into the seed raising mix.

Keep in mind that approximately only one in three pips will sprout, so the more you plant, the greater your chances of successfully sprouting the pips. Push the pips down into the mix, just a little way though, maybe about half a centimeter/ 1/8 an inch. Cover them over with a little mix and pat down gently. In my experience, it doesn't seem to matter which way up the pips go into the mix, just get them settled in there.

Water your tray carefully, taking care not to disturb your newly planted pips and make sure it is draining well.

You now need to find a safe place for your tray.

This seed tray has had a few apple seedlings dug out of it already.
The seedling you can see in the tray has got a wee bit of sunburn on it's lower leaves, whoops.

Apple pips or seeds need stratification to germinate, which means a period of cold weather generally followed by warmer weather. So autumn and winter are good times for this project, as the easiest thing to do now is keep your seed tray outside in a shady spot while the weather is cold. Make sure your tray of pips stays damp but not waterlogged, so if the weather is very dry, water it occasionally.

Your pips will start to sprout anywhere from about two weeks onwards. They will not come up all at once in my experience, but will sprout successively over a period of weeks, or even months if you leave them long enough.

Once your tiny seedlings are big enough to need transplanting, use a spoon to scoop the seedling and it's soil out of the tray together, so you don't disturb the roots. Re-pot them into larger pots, using regular potting soil, or a mix of potting soil and compost.

Any un-sprouted pips can be left in the tray and the tray left in it's original position, just wait and see how many more will sprout.

This apple seedling is about eight weeks old.

Once your baby plants are in their own little pots, keep them in a sunny area and well watered.

And try to keep them out of the path of slugs and snails. Speaking from experience, slugs and snails will make very short work of a tender, tasty apple seedling.

Aphids also seem to enjoy the soft tender leaves while the plant is very young, so you may want to make up some aphid spray or just rub the little suckers off with your thumb.

See the slug damage on some of the leaves?

Apparently, apples grown from seed may take up to six years to produce fruit so your little plants have some growing to do.

And they often do not grow true to type, which means you may be surprised with your end result. Maybe you will produce the next must-have cultivar that will be in orchards across the nation, you won't know for a few years, so treat those little seedlings well and see what they give you in return.

Our little trees are getting bigger. This one is now about 8 months old and has been re-potted once since the previous photos.

I give them some liquid fish emulsion once in a while and some worm juice from my worm farm. It could probably use re-potting again soon. As a comparison, I have left a couple of the baby trees in their original small pots I replanted them into, and they are still tiny. So remember to re-pot or they will stay small and very stunted.

The small trees still tend to get aphids on their top most new leaves so I give them a spray once in a while with my homemade aphid spray. There are a number of ways to make your own aphid spray, here's a couple of sprays you can easily make up at home:

Homemade aphid control.

Natural spray for fighting aphids.