Content
- How to grow a seed from a real olive tree
- Olives are considered stone fruit
- Selection of seeds
- How must suitable olives be made?
- Preparation of the seed for planting
- Tips & Tricks
How to grow a seed from a real olive tree
Of course, you can just go to a garden center or a hardware store and buy an Olea europaea olive tree - or you can enjoy growing such a tree yourself. We show you how it works!
Olives are considered stone fruit
Just like plum, cherry, peach or nectarine, olives are also among the stone fruit varieties. Drupes typically contain a hard, heavily woody seed kernel surrounded by soft pulp. Such fruits are usually eaten by birds or other animals, the seeds are usually also swallowed and excreted in another place again. In this way, the stone fruit-bearing trees or shrubs multiply, which of course also applies to the olive.
Selection of seeds
Getting seed peas is not that easy with olives. Although olives with core are certainly available in German supermarkets, but almost exclusively in processed form. The seeds of pickled or otherwise processed olives, however, are no longer germinable. But even fresh olives, which are sometimes available at Italian or Turkish specialty stores, are only partially suitable for olive growing - these are mostly green, so immature and thus not yet viable.
How must suitable olives be made?
Seed kernels suitable for young olives have the following characteristics:
However, such olives are hardly to be found in Germany, which is why you really only have these options:
Preparation of the seed for planting
Before planting, however, you should prepare the seed accordingly, d. H. You should carefully remove the seed from the surrounding flesh - but be careful not to injure the core. Gently wash the seed under running, warm water while rubbing off the remaining flesh. Then let the core swell for 24 hours in room-warm water (change the water more often) - this is especially true for purchased, d. H. dried seeds. Now you can put the core with the tip up about one centimeter deep in seed soil.
Tips & Tricks
Olive trees grown from seeds are generally not noble olives, but belong to the genus of wild olives. Once your tree is a bit older, you could use it as a base for a noble olive. But you would need a suitable cutting that you can bring back from vacation.