Tony Taylor, age 8, of Santa Maria, California, for his question:

Do you plant the hard or soft part of a peach seed?

You plant the whole seed in its crusty shell. And when you plant a peach seed, you should prepare yourself to be patient for a very long time. Nothing at all may happen for a year or even for two years. And all this time the seed must be hidden down in the dark soil where things are rather moist. If everything is just right, at last it may sprout a root and a shoot.

The seed germ is in the softish little nut and the hard shell is meant to protect it. If you plant it without its hard shell, it would be eaten up by the hungry little bugs and grubs in the ground. It needs a very tough, hard shell because the little seed stays in the ground a long time before it sprouts. When its roots and shoots finally begin to grow, they push open the two halves of the shell from the inside. After a few years the young seedling peach tree must be grafted with a twig from another peach tree. This will help it to bear big juicy peaches worth eating.