Harvesting Chestnuts

Every year at this time I enjoy harvesting chestnuts. These are American Chestnuts, most of which were killed by a blight many decades ago. Three trees on my neighbor's property are 30 to 40 years old and produce many nuts. They seem to be thriving, though major limbs die off every year or two. These are not the hundred foot tall monster trees that dominated eastern forests a few centuries ago.

These Are the Chestnuts Now Drying on Our Front Greenhouse Counter

This Is a Chestnut That Dropped with the Nuts Inside: the Prickers Are Really Sharp!

The Three Neighbor's Trees That Produce Most of Our Nuts

These chestnuts are protected by very prickly hulls that require heavy gloves to pick them up without harm. It's nearly impossible to handle them with bare fingers without drawing blood. When they are ripe, the pods open up on the tree and the nuts often drop and can be collected without gloves. This morning I picked up four pounds and this afternoon, almost five pounds. I still wear gloves because I gather all the husks and place them around the trunks of the trees. That way, anyone under the branches is new and the nuts should be available.

The Collar of Chestnut Hulls That Surround Each Trunk

We like chestnuts very much because they are easy to peel while watching videos. Black walnuts, hickory and butternuts all require a hammer or other mechanism to break their shells, a process that is very messy (and not allowed indoors). It then takes lots of patience to separate the edible meats. Chestnuts can be opened with a paring knife (on the living room couch) and are ready for eating raw, or roasted, or boiled without making much of a mess (or risking dented fingers). 

A Few Days of Chestnuts Drying on Our Front Greenhouse Counter

Each of the last two years we harvested over 50 pounds of chestnuts. We don't keep track of how much our neighbor harvests for her family and how much the squirrels and deer also take so total production of these trees is much higher. This morning I picked up four pounds of nuts and six hours later another 4.7 pounds. This year, the nuts are plumper than last year and there are many fewer "blanks", nuts that did not get fertilized and end up being only shells, without meat. Chestnuts are fertilized by wind and air currents, not pollinating insects.

In years past, we planted 100 prime chestnuts among our garlic, hoping squirrels were deterred by their smell. Between ten and 25 germinated successfully and within two years became small shrubs. We now have so many of these small trees so we don't have to plant any more. We also have a few ten years old chestnut trees that are now producing ten to twenty pounds of fruit. Next year we will transplant about twenty small trees now growing in former garlic beds to properly spaced rows in one of our fields.