Growing olive tree from seeds

Olives are stone fruits

Just like plum, cherry, peach or nectarine also counts the olive to the stone fruits. Stone fruits typically contain a hard, heavily lignified seed core that is surrounded by soft pulp. Such fruits are usually eaten by birds or other animals, whereby the seeds are usually also swallowed and excreted at another point. In this way the drupe-bearing trees multiply respectively. Shrubs, which of course also applies to the olive.

Selection of the seeds

Getting the right seeds is not that easy with olives. Olives with a core are certainly available in German supermarkets, however almost exclusively in processed form. However, the seeds of pickled or otherwise processed olives are no longer capable of germination. But even fresh olives, which are sometimes available in Italian or Turkish specialty shops, are only partially suitable for olive cultivation - because they are mostly green, so immature and thus not yet germinable.

How must suitable olives be made?

For the Pulling young olives suitable seed kernels have the following properties:

• they are ripe, d. H. have the darkest and softest possible pulp
• the more mature the better
• they are not processed, but fresh
• the fresher the better
• neither the olive nor the pit must show signs of damage (e. B. cracked spots)

However, such olives are hardly available in Germany, which is why you only have these options:

• Harvest from your own tree
• Bring seeds from vacation
• Buy seeds from specialist retailers

Preparing the seed for planting

However, before planting, you should prepare the seed appropriately, i. H. You should carefully remove the surrounding pulp from the seed core - but be careful not to damage the core in the process. Gently wash the seeds under warm running water and rub off the rest of the pulp. Then let the core soak in water at room temperature for 24 hours (change the water more often) - this is especially true for purchased, i.e. H. dried seeds. You can now put the core in about an inch deep with the point up Potting soil set.

Tips & Tricks

Olive trees grown from seeds are usually not noble olives, but belong to the genus of wild olives. As soon as your tree is a bit older, you could use it as a base for a precious olive. To do this, however, you would need an appropriate cutting that you can bring with you from vacation.