Can You Grow A Garden From Grocery Store Produce Seeds?

Creating your own kitchen garden can be a very rewarding experience. And while it might be able to save you money in the long run, the initial setup can require some investment. Which might lead you to wonder if you can skip the nursery order and grow everything you need from seeds extracted from store-bought fruit and vegetables.

The short answer is yes, you can save those seeds. The longer answer is that the results are going to vary significantly depending on the type of produce, how it was grown, and even how it was treated after harvesting.

The first thing to consider is that not all vegetables are grown from seed, but rather from roots or cuttings. Even with those that do have seeds, what you get in store might not be the fully mature vegetable. This is the case with cucumbers, whose seeds are not developed by the time you buy them. Some imported fruits are irradiated when they enter the country. It's done to kill harmful microbes, but can also affect the viability of the seeds.

You might have heard that you can't grow the seeds of hybrid plants, but this isn't the case. These seeds will grow, but you won't necessarily get the same crop that you purchased in the first place. The seeds from hybrid plants usually revert to one of the original varieties that were bred together, often with less desirable characteristics.

If you're happy to see your kitchen gardening project as something of an experiment, then you can have plenty of fun growing food from store-bought produce seeds. Tomatoes are one of the easiest vegetables to grow, but very often the grocery store options are hybrids. If you want something that's an exact match to the tomato you bought, then look for those labeled as heirloom tomatoes.

Both bell peppers and chilies grow well from seeds, provided that you're starting with ripe varieties — red, orange, or yellow should all work. Green peppers are unripe, and as such the seeds haven't matured enough to regrow. This is also the case with some summer squash. Pattypan squash and some zucchinis are picked for sale while the seeds are underdeveloped. Winter squash, on the other hand, is fully mature, so seeds from acorn, butternut, or pumpkins can be set aside for growing.

In terms of fruit, watermelon and strawberries are surprisingly easy to grow. Citrus fruits technically can be grown from seed, but you'll need a lot of patience. Although the seeds germinate quickly, the resulting plant may not bear fruit for around 5-10 years.