Goofy: Apple seeds require a period of cold treatment to enable the embryos to break dormancy. Put the fresh seeds into a ziplock bag with a barely moist piece of towel paper, place them in your refrigerator, then check them on a weekly basis. They should begin to sprout in about 3-6 weeks, but that period is not set in stone. After you see them sprout, that is the time to put them in your pots. I hope you have a lot of room, a lot of time, and low expectations if you are going to grow out a seedling apple or two. Seedling trees will grow very large, and take a long, long time to bear. When they do, the apples may not resemble McIntosh at all. Chances are pretty good they will be small, sour, and resemble crabapples. That's the reason apple trees are grafted - so they will be copies of their parents. If you want a McIntosh tree, buy a grafted specimen from a good nursery source. Some pretty good nurseries sell grafted trees on semi-dwarf rootstocks for about $10. Even the more expensive nurseries wouldn't run much over $20, and it would be money well spent. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

When you get a bunch of these your situation is on the damp side - potting soil is probably too moist for an apple tree, may have broken down and need to be replaced. If you have a saucer underneath the pot, taking that away could help.

Justin, Try it. You might just get a great new apple. I have planted apple, pear, and peach seeds. Peach seeds or pits, I did plant years ago and got real nice peaches from the trees. Pears and apples I planted them 2 yrs ago, and the trees are still too young to bear fruit--I hope someday they will bear some. Of course, I planted the seeds the lazy--or easy--way. Sometime in the winter (I live in zone 5. Used seeds from fruit I had just bought from a supermarket.) I planted the seeds in the ground, covered them with dirt--the small seeds not too deep, the peach pits deeper. In the spring they sprouted. Just make sure you mark the spot where you plant your seeds; this way, you wont pull them out as weeds--something I often do. I'm sure you are doing this for fun, so enjoy and learn. Hey, After 5 summers, I just got my first flowers from oriental lilies that I started from seed...Most of them look just like their parents...2 look different, but I have seen the same type of flowers in catalogs. Good luck, but most important: Happy Gardening!!!

They should still be fine if they were kept room temperature and weren't exposed to the sun too much. As for germinating them, I'm no expert, but I think they will need a period of cold temperatures to break the dormant period. I believe this is called stratification. You can either plant them outside over winter and they will come up in the spring, or put them in a fridge for about 4 weeks then plant them. I don't know how long they take to germinate as I have never tried to grow any but I have heard it can be as little as a day, although that is probably rare. Hope this helps.