Growing Avocado, Lemon and Apple Pips with Kids

There is something quietly magical about growing a plant from a bit you would normally throw away. The stone in the middle of an avocado, the pips inside a lemon, the little brown seeds in an apple core — with a jar of water or a pot of compost, a child can turn kitchen scraps into living, leafy houseplants. It costs nothing, it teaches patience, and the slow reveal of a first root or shoot is genuinely exciting.

These are some of the best rainy-day projects for children because they need almost no kit and very little tidiness. They are also a brilliant lesson in honesty. Most pips and stones grow into handsome houseplants but rarely (if ever) produce fruit in the UK — and that is fine. We will be straight about what to expect so nobody is disappointed in two years' time. For more quick wins to do alongside these, our getting kids growing guide is the place to start, and you might enjoy our companion project on regrowing veg from scraps too.

Growing an avocado from a stone

The avocado is the showstopper of pip-growing — a big, glossy plant from a stone the size of a conker. There are two easy methods, and children love both.

The cocktail-stick-over-water method is the classic one because you can watch everything happen. Wash the stone and notice that it has a slightly pointed end (the top) and a flatter end (the bottom, where roots come from). Push three or four cocktail sticks into the sides, spaced out like spokes, then rest the stone on the rim of a glass or jam jar so the cocktail sticks hold it up. Fill the jar with water until the bottom centimetre of the stone is sitting in it. Pop it somewhere warm and bright — a kitchen windowsill is perfect — and top the water up as it drops.

Patience is the order of the day. Over the next four to eight weeks the stone usually splits, a chunky root pushes down into the water, and a shoot rises from the top. Once the root system is a few centimetres long and there is a little shoot, pot it up into a pot of multipurpose compost with the top half of the stone still showing above the surface.

The potting method skips the jar. Simply half-bury the stone, pointed-end up, in a pot of damp compost, keep it warm and bright, and wait. It is less fun to watch but often just as successful, and there is no jar to knock over.

Here is the honest part. In the UK, an avocado grown from a stone makes a lovely leafy houseplant, but it will almost never produce avocados. Our climate is too cool, the plant would need to be huge, and shop avocados come from carefully chosen, often grafted trees in warm countries. Treat it as a handsome green companion for the windowsill, pinch out the growing tip when it reaches about 30cm to encourage a bushier shape, and enjoy it for what it is.

Growing citrus from lemon and orange pips

Lemon and orange pips are among the most rewarding things a child can sow, because they sprout fairly readily and grow into genuinely pretty plants with dark, glossy leaves that smell faintly of citrus when you brush them.

Next time you use a lemon or orange, rinse a few of the plumpest pips and don't let them dry out. Fill a small pot with damp compost, push the pips about 1cm down, cover lightly, and water gently. Cover the pot with a clear freezer bag or a cut-down clear bottle to keep it humid, and stand it somewhere warm and bright. Citrus likes warmth to get going, so the top of a sunny windowsill or near (not on) a radiator helps. This stage is simply waiting for germination — the moment the seed wakes up and the first shoot appears, usually in two to four weeks.

Once seedlings poke through, take the bag off and keep them in the brightest spot you have. Citrus seedlings grown from pips make excellent windowsill plants, and the windowsill is exactly where many of these projects live happily — see our guide to windowsill growing for more on light, watering and keeping pots happy indoors.

Be honest with little growers here too. Pips will not "come true" — that is, the plant grown from a pip is not a copy of the parent and may differ in all sorts of ways. And while a citrus grown from a pip can, after many years, eventually flower and even fruit in a very warm, bright spot, it usually doesn't, and it certainly won't match the lemon or orange it came from. The fun is in raising a glossy little tree from a free pip, not in a future bowl of lemons.

Growing apple pips

Apple pips are a wonderful lesson in how the seasons work, because they need a cold spell before they will sprout. In the wild, apple seeds fall in autumn, sit through a cold British winter, and only sprout in spring once the cold has "switched them on". We can copy that in the fridge.

Scoop the brown pips from an apple core, rinse off any flesh, and wrap them in a piece of damp kitchen paper inside a labelled freezer bag or tub. Put them in the fridge — the salad drawer is ideal — and leave them for around six to eight weeks, checking now and then that the paper is still slightly damp. This cold spell is called stratification, and it is the gardener's trick of pretending winter has happened.

After their cold rest, sow the pips about 1cm deep in a small pot of damp compost, keep them on a bright windowsill, and wait for a shoot. Not every pip will sprout, so sow more than you need.

The honest truth about apple pips is the most interesting science of the lot. A pip will not grow into a tree that makes the same apple — every apple pip is a brand-new, unpredictable mix of its parents, a bit like how brothers and sisters are all different. It could take many years to fruit, if it ever does in the UK, and the apples it eventually makes are a lottery. This is exactly why orchards and garden centres don't grow apple trees from pips. Instead they use grafting: they join a shoot of a known, tasty variety onto a separate rootstock, so every tree is a reliable copy. Explaining grafting to a curious child — "they glue a twig of a good apple tree onto strong roots" — is a lovely lightbulb moment.

Date stones, mango stones and other kitchen finds

Once children are hooked, almost any stone or pip becomes an experiment. A few favourites:

• Date stones — soak a stone from a (natural, unsweetened) date in water for a day or two, then half-bury it in damp compost somewhere warm. With patience you may get a single grassy shoot that grows into a palm-like houseplant.
• Mango stones — carefully open the big flat husk to free the seed inside (an adult job with scissors), then pot it up in warmth. Mangoes are very tender and make a striking, fast-growing houseplant for a bright windowsill.
• Pomegranate, kiwi and pepper seeds — all worth a try in a pot of compost on a warm sill, purely for the fun of it.

The pattern is always the same: clean the seed, keep it warm and bright, keep the compost just damp, and wait. As with the others, treat these as houseplant projects rather than a route to home-grown fruit.

Managing expectations — these are houseplants, not orchards

It is worth saying plainly, because it shapes the whole project: avocado stones, citrus pips, apple pips and most other kitchen seeds grow into fun, slow houseplants that very rarely fruit in the UK. That is not a failure — it is the point. You are growing something alive and green from something free, and learning how seeds and plants work along the way.

If what you really want is fruit or veg to eat, that is a different (and equally fun) adventure. Point keen growers towards genuine quick-win crops in our roundup of easy crops for kids, or the family-friendly easiest crops for beginners. Pips and stones, meanwhile, earn their place on the windowsill as living souvenirs of snacks gone by.

Caring for your seedlings

Once your pips and stones have sprouted, a little care keeps them growing into healthy houseplants:

• Light. Give them the brightest windowsill you have — a south- or west-facing sill is ideal. Turn the pots a quarter every few days so they grow straight rather than leaning towards the glass.
• Warmth. Most of these plants are tropical or tender, so keep them indoors, away from cold draughts and frosty windows in winter. They are houseplants for life in the UK, not garden plants.
• Water. Keep the compost just damp, never soggy. Let the top of the compost dry slightly between waterings, and tip away any water sitting in the saucer so roots don't rot.
• Potting on. When roots start to show at the bottom of the pot or the plant looks top-heavy, move it into a slightly bigger pot of fresh multipurpose compost. Don't jump to a giant pot — one size up at a time is best.
• Feeding. From spring to late summer, a weak general houseplant feed every couple of weeks keeps the leaves glossy. Ease off in autumn and winter when growth naturally slows.

Growing from pips and stones is one of those projects that rewards a slow, curious kind of attention — exactly the kind children are brilliant at. There is no rush, nothing much to buy, and a real thrill each time a stone splits or a shoot appears. When you and your child are ready for the next thing, head back to the kids hub for more easy projects, or try turning more leftovers into plants with regrowing veg from scraps. For anything destined to stay on the sill, our windowsill growing guide will keep your new houseplants thriving for years.