Sprouting grocery store seeds.

[AKgardener]

@pepperhead212 ok thank you are there any small varieties would be nice to grow something other than yellow and green zucchini haha

[pepperhead212]

@AKgardener I haven't been thrilled with the smaller varieties of butternut I've grown (butterbush and honeynut) , because they only produced a couple of fruits per plant (I was hoping for more, since I was getting smaller ones), plus they didn't store as well as my favorite, the polaris. But that one has very long vines, so probably not for greenhouse growing! I always get brief flowering, and maybe one fruit per plant very early, about the same time small varieties would start flowering, but then stop flowering, and grow like crazy until later in the summer, like regular winter squash, and usually around 6 or 7 squash per plant. The small varieties were gone, by then, each time, and by fall I had some of them getting soft, so I had to use them immediately.

[AKgardener]

I ordered some last night got early baby and cheiftian, just do to my growing time these will be all outside!! Hoping for the best thanks for the tip

[Greatgardens]

Like Bower I am planting seeds from the small, sweet, multicolored snack peppers just to see what happens. Most are red, yellow and orange; hoping for a result.

.

I did that some years ago, and they grew well and were small, but weren't as sweet as the originals. The best luck I've had with grocery store seed sprouting was a gold grape tomato from Aldi. I can't remember the name, but it grew a big plant, produced well, and was very tasty.

[Rockporter]

I opened a bag of small red, gold, and white potatoes mix and at least half of them are growing My sweet potatoes I bought at the organic store are also growing. Hmm, where do I plant more potatoes, I don't want to plant in the same containers again, lol. How long do sprouted potatoes last?

[Whwoz]

@Rockporter they will last for 2 or 3 months depending upon size. Sit them outside in a bit of sun where they can toughen up a bit and they should be fine . I have had them grow successfully after a couple of months, just make sure that they don't get too much sun and get cooked

[bower]

Just another issue that has come up, WRT grocery peppers or tomatoes seeds.
Apparently this new Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus can be picked up by handling infected fruit, also may be carried in seeds, and can be present in asymptomatic plants or fruits. Seed transmission may be less than 2% but there is a small chance of picking up this nasty disease using grocery store seeds. The big issue with this kind of virus is that it's very persistent in soil and on surfaces, and very resistant to disinfection, and easily transmitted by human touch. So it could wreck your ability to grow tomatoes for the long term.
Peppers do have resistance genes that work against this virus, although non-resistant varieties exist.
Anyway, if you see any mosaic or puckering of upper leaves or if you get stunted plants from grocery seeds, best rogue them out and burn or dispose away from the garden, to be on the safe side.

[svalli]

Just another issue that has come up, WRT grocery peppers or tomatoes seeds.
Apparently this new Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus can be picked up by handling infected fruit, also may be carried in seeds, and can be present in asymptomatic plants or fruits. Seed transmission may be less than 2% but there is a small chance of picking up this nasty disease using grocery store seeds. The big issue with this kind of virus is that it's very persistent in soil and on surfaces, and very resistant to disinfection, and easily transmitted by human touch. So it could wreck your ability to grow tomatoes for the long term.
Peppers do have resistance genes that work against this virus, although non-resistant varieties exist.
Anyway, if you see any mosaic or puckering of upper leaves or if you get stunted plants from grocery seeds, best rogue them out and burn or dispose away from the garden, to be on the safe side.

I was going to write about that issue of taking seeds from grocery store tomatoes and peppers. Finnish Food Authority has been warning home gardeners about sowing seeds from these store bought vegetables which have risk of ToBRFV and some other plant pathogens. Many Finnish gardening groups online have banned discussions and recommendations to sow pepper and tomato seeds taken from store bought fruits.
There are many much better tomato varieties as seeds available than the ones grown commercially, but I have also sown some snack pepper seeds from fruits which I bought for food. Those did not produce as sweet tasting peppers as the original ones, so I have not done that anymore and now when there is a risk of getting some bad virus I will definitely not be doing it.

[bower]

Yeah, I sure wasn't thinking about these issues when I started those pepper seeds.
The plants are looking very normal though, and just at the stage about to flower and set some fruit. If I had read about this earlier, I wouldn't have kept those seedlings. Not worth taking the chance.
I spent a few hours looking at pics of the rugose virus symptoms, and for sure there is nothing to see here, but I decided to ditch two small plants that didn't develop good roots, instead of waiting for them to catch up. Since the virus often causes stunting, it's a good precaution to get those out.
I'll be keeping the peppers in the house, upstairs, not in the greenhouse. and I won't be handling them much, and I'll be washing up before handling tomato plants or greenhouse things.
The same advice also applies to handling tomatoes or peppers from the grocery store. Wash up before you touch your plants.
I've been buying peppers for a few years while I wasn't growing my own, and I've always put the remains in the compost with anything else. In theory that could be just as bad.

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

I saved some seed from the Flavor Bomb cherries my husband picked up this winter and started 2 of them just to see. I was away and did not get to start my seed until Friday. Those two seeds were the first that popped up; nice sight to see first thing this morning. I always grow 2 cherries, typically Sunsugar. Based on the post above, should these little plants be tossed? Or is it okay to separate from the rest of my starts? When would this ugly thing rear it's head in the growing process?

Last year I tried a Sunrise Bumblebee in place of one and it was a bust. When our early heat waves struck, the plant sort of went dormant; most of the growing season it stayed about 2 feet tall and then late in the season when our temps dropped it grew like gangbusters but I won't waste a spot on it again. We shall see how this grocery store seed pans out.

[bower]

@CrazyAboutOrchids as I understand it, the US has stricter regulations on the import of tomatoes and peppers than we do in Canada, and actually does some testing or screening of product intended for the table. So the risk may be smaller, if not zero. I did read a report of it turning up in a community garden in Florida, iirc. It is at its worst in commercial greenhouse setting where plants are constantly being handled, pruned and tied at high density.
Here is a page from Cornell:
https://www.vegetables.cornell.edu/pest ... uit-virus/

Some good pics on tomato leaf here:
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/tobrfv-a- ... -producers

Pics of symptoms on pepper leaves:
https://bsppjournals.onlinelibrary.wile ... 20.041.020
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10. ... 12891?af=R

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

Many thanks for the links....

[Labradors]

AKGardener. You will get a yellow pepper. Many people tried to get that gorgeous yellow/red variegated pepper, but they are grown from clones which will not come true from seed. At least they are supposed to be tasty though .

Linda

[PoisonApple]

I’ve planted cantaloupe seeds, garlic, potatoes, green onions stumps, leek stumps and a few others in the past with success. I’m a bit more concerned/aware pathogens than I once was so if I do in the future I’ll probably try and grow in quarantine for a generation first. I’ve started many haas avocados just for the heck of it, but it definitely won’t produce in my climate or survive outside for that matter. I still plant any green onion or leek stump I use in my patio containers because it’s just too easy not to and pretty low risk being in their own containers. The barrier for some fruits of course being that they aren’t always sold in their mature state where the seeds would be mature enough to germinate (e.g. zucchini, cucumbers, etc).

[pepperhead212]

A while ago I got a pound each of Byadagi peppers and Kashmiri peppers, and I did a test run with well over a dozen seeds from each, doing my usual overnight soaking in a small amount of KNO3 solution, then drained them, and set them on a layer of PTs in 2 petri dishes, and set them on a plate, at about 85°, and waited to see if they would sprout. Well over half of the Byadagi seeds sprouted in less than a week, but not a single Kashmiri seed sprouted in over 2 weeks, and I eventually tossed them, as they must be irradiated, or something that sterilized them. So the byadagi seeds I'll try this year - I'll pull some seeds from the best looking peppers, though they are pretty much uniform.

[Tormato]

Many of the exotic beans they sell in some stores are basically heirlooms and not hybrids.
One of which the name escapes me comes from south America.
Well actually several.
Others have several names for the same bean.
One I can't find to save my life on line but was at the feiesta market in Austin.
My neighbor frome Chilie knew of it.
Dark red rounded and a little hard even after cooked.
The bean I call mayocoba has several names alone.
Canary Puerano Peruvian and so on.
The same with cranberry beans as well.
I would highly suspect the Anasazi bean would definitely come true to seed.

All beans, other than a stray seed here or there, or those used by plant breeders, are OP. There are no hybrids.

As for "cranberry" beans, there are many different varieties that use the generic term in, or as, their name.

And with the Anasazi bean, there appears to be two different vine lengths associated with the name.

[Seven Bends]

I grew seeds from grocery store snack peppers again in 2023. Mucci Farms "Sweet to the Point" red snack peppers were a big success. I grew two plants which both were healthy and vigorous and produced high yields of very sweet and tasty red snack peppers. The peppers on one plant were slightly darker red than the other plant. I plan to grow some again this year. I'll grow them away from other peppers and tomatoes due to concerns about the tomato brown rugose fruit virus.

I also grew seeds from Wild Wonders striped snack peppers, and that experiment was a failure. The plant was spindly and produced only a few peppers very late in the season. The peppers weren't striped (if I remember correctly, they were a plain goldish color), and were neither sweet nor flavorful. I knew others had said the stripes wouldn't grow true, but I was hoping the flavor would be there. It wasn't.

[bower]

My orange snack peppers were quite a nice group as well. I think they were the same brand 'Sweet to the Point'. They were variable in size and shape, but we enjoyed all of them. I didn't see any sign of the dreaded disease but it was a bit of a stress to be watching them for that.
Not growing again since I have some awesome new OP pepper seeds to try for 2024.

[slugworth]

A carrot in the bag that was putting out greens at the end I topped and planted the stub in a container with a tomato clone to keep it company.
It is still alive after about 6 weeks and is putting out greens under a curly 100w fluorescent daylight bulb.
I expect it to bolt like lettuce cores do, but will make a queen annes lace type flower plant.
I dipped it in cinnamon as a rooting compound experiment.

[habitat-gardener]

I’ve been growing a long sweet brown pepper for several years, from grocery store Wild Wonder peppers. I also grew out the seeds from the long orange pepper from the same bag. Though I’ve saved seeds from the peppers I grew, I haven’t planted those to find out if these peppers produce something different as F3s.