I live in Manitoba, so nothing survives the winter, but I love plants and have many herbs and coleuses (colei??) indoors.

I would like to plant things like orange seeds and avacado pits in pots, and am wondering how much and what kind of light I would need. Also, how warm would the apartment have to be? I don't have a ton of natural light.

Has anyone here who's in a cold climate successfully grown tropical fruits indoors? I'm not expecting to actually get fruit from them, but it would be cool to say I have a little grapefruit tree in my room :lol:

You can grow tropical fruit indoors. Lemons are supposed to grow well. Usually a south or east-facing window is best. Temps don't have to be very high for most tropical fruit, just normal comfortable room temps.

You can get little lemon and other tropical fruit trees to grow inside from some nursuries. Or you can grow them from seed.

This company has all kinds of tropical fruit seeds:

http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/

I ordered from them and they are prompt and inexpensive. But I killed the few seeds I planted by forgetting to water them for a week. :doh:

One time I tried to grow some oranges using some orange seeds I had. They grew a little than died. I was growing them inside. I knew that they wouldn't survive outside because it is cold in Michigan. I don't know what I did wrong. I would like to try it again though.

I live in Nova Scotia, which is probably a little further south than where you are (right?), but we have a couple of citrus trees in our living room. Apparently there was a lime at one point, but it got transported a lot and died. However, we have a beautiful little kumquat tree that blooms and bears kumquats pretty often, and a lemon tree that actually grows about two dozen grocery-store sized lemons every year. It's pretty amazing! We have them in a south-facing window and we put the lemon outside in the summer. Our house is really cold in the winter (wood heat) and they haven't died. So go for it! I think the hard part is getting them started, so you might want to look for them in places that sell houseplants as well as try from seed.

good luck!

I have seen bonsai fruit trees at my local nursary.
I also found this link as a starter
http://doityourself.com/fruits/containergrownfruit.htm

You are supposed to be able to grow kumquats in pots. They'll turn into a nice dwarf plant, and you need to take them inside in cold weather.

The experts suggest buying a plant already (they run $50-100 or so, IIRC), but I'm trying to grow some from seed that I saved from a package of kumquat fruits. Out of 10 seeds I planted, I have two plants about 4 months later.

In about 2 years, I'll know if I screwed up or not. :p

Btw, outside in Manitoba, you may be able to grow bush cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and a few other fruits in the summer (depending on your location). I find that growing plants outside is a lot less time intensive than indoor plants, and canned/dried fruits and jellies still taste good in winter.