A grapefruit tree growing in the kitchen?

Does this not happen in the U.S.? I guess I’ve forgotten how fertile the soil in Vanuatu is. When I first arrived, they told us new Volunteers how really you don’t need to bother planting things. You just throw the seeds in the ground and it’ll grow. Of course I remembered my middle school science lessons and thought that it must be the combination of sunlight and rain that causes the seeds to grow.

However the other day, we were sitting in the kitchen when my dad said, “Oh look there’s 2 grapefruit trees beginning to grow.” Sure enough I looked underneath the bench I was sitting on and there were 2 six inch tall plants growing. I took his word for it that they were grapefruit trees. They could’ve just as easily been weeds, but my dad dug them up and transplanted them into plastic bags so that they wouldn’t get trampled in the kitchen. When they’re bigger and stronger, he’ll replant them in the soil.

How did they wind up growing inside the kitchen? Well my guess is that one day we were eating grapefruit and we spit out the seeds on the dirt floor. Logically the seeds started to sprout and there you have it the beginnings of a grapefruit tree.