To begin your apricot seed planting, choose a luscious mid- to late-season type of apricot, ideally one that was grown from seed itself.Eat the fruit; actually eat a few to raise the chances of germination, and save your pits.
Scrub any flesh off and lay them out on newspaper for three hours or so to dry.
Now you need to get the seed out of the pit.
Use a hammer gingerly on the side of the pit to crack it.
You can also use a nutcracker or vice.
The idea is to get the seed out of the pit without crushing it.
If you are in doubt that any of these methods will work for you, as a last resort, you can just plant the entire pit but germination will take longer.
Once you have retrieved the seeds, allow them to dry on the newspaper for a few more hours.
You can now store them in a cover jar or zip-top plastic bag in refrigerator to stratify the seeds for 60 days.
Whether to stratify or not depends on where you obtained the fruit.
If purchased from a grocery store, the fruit has already been cold stored, so it is less likely to need to stratify; but if you bought them from a farmers market or plucked them directly from a tree, it is necessary to stratify the seeds.
If you are not going to stratify the seeds, wrap them in a clean, damp paper towel and place them in a plastic bag in a window.
Keep an eye on it.
Water as needed to keep it moist and change the paper towel if it begins to mildew.
