by Emma Cooper

Created on: December 06, 2008

For many gardeners, growing plants from seeds and cuttings becomes something of an obsession. Not only do you have the joy of nurturing tiny plants, but there's the challenge aspect of it all - can I get this to grow in my garden? And as most of us have to garden on a budget, it becomes natural to view the grocery store as a source of unusual planting material.

I have been growing plants from kitchen groceries for a number of years now. The first thing I tried was dragon fruit - a truly tropical plant that would never survive outside in my climate. The dragon fruit is an unusual plant to grow from groceries, because it is a cactus. The fruits have an enormous number of seeds inside, distributed throughout the flesh. Separating them out isn't hard, but it's a slow process if you try and save them all. I found that nearly all of the seeds germinated after I cleaned them and sowed them in a little bit of potting compost, so you'll have plenty of seeds to share with friends. Dragon fruit cacti are quite slow growing, and prickly, but they have an attractive trailing habit. I suspect it will be many years before they get large enough to fruit, but in the meantime they make an attractive (and easily cared for) houseplant.

Another fruit that I've had lots of success with is lemons. Store bought lemons tend to have quite a number of pips, and if you rinse them off and plant them in compost then they have a very good germination rate - although you will have to be patient as they can take up to two months to begin growing. Citrus plants make very good houseplants, with their attractive glossy leaves. When they flower, they have a very attractive scent and are very beautiful. After a few years your plant should be old enough to fruit. Most lemon plants will grow fruit that are perfectly edible. Some other citrus plants grown from seed (such as oranges) may produce fruit that is not very nice to eat, but you can't tell until they start fruiting. You may find that a home grown lemon bush is spinier than a named variety from the garden centre, but if you grow several seedlings you can keep the ones that you like best.

A fun project for children is to grow their own peanut plant. You can plant peanuts from the grocery store, but you have to buy the ones that are still in their shells - once the nuts have been cracked the seeds quickly dry out and will not germinate. Shell the nuts before you plant them, though, or germination will be patchy. Peanut seeds are easy to plant -

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