How do you use the chestnuts?

I've had roasted chestnuts 3 times and never liked them. Last week, I ate a a small, raw, fresh chestnut at Farm Science Review, that was okay.

I got 3 small chestnut trees in trade, for 2 Hall's Cold Hardy almond trees at the Fall ONGA meeting, I need to plant.

The most valuable nut crop in Ohio right now is chestnuts. There's Route 9 Cooperative, which has at least 5 growers, with large acreage and another large grower just North of them, who sells his excess to them. They produce huge amounts of chestnuts. Most of their chestnuts are sold to Asian people. The demand is supposed to far exceed the supply. The Asians prefer medium sized chestnuts over the large and small. Some of the biggest chestnuts are over 3" across.

Keith

You should be able to at least grow hazelnuts where you are. They are extremely cold hardy. They were the first staple crop in Europe. They helped our ancestors survive when Europe was still not long out of the ice age.

Keith

Thanks Roy. I'll send your buckeyes next Monday.

Keith

That's like what Amanda and Diane will be making. Ohio State fans pay big money for necklaces like those. I would like to get some of those scarlet and gray beads for the necklaces. The beads add a lot to the buckeyes.

Keith

Call MDC @ 636-441-4554 for the newest tree catalog, out-of-staters welcome.

I picked up walnuts on my farm today. I mowed the edge of my hayfields I was going to collect from on Sunday. There were very few dropped walnuts. I walked down to a low area, with my Walnut Weasel and a 5 gallon bucket, collecting the relatively few scattered nuts, until I got to a tree that had probably dropped a third of it's load. Not wanting to carry around 80 pounds of walnuts back in buckets, I got my truck and a both parts of a 55 gallon barrel with a 1/3rd cut off it.







Keith

Keith,
we eat the chestnuts raw, roasted as far as I'm concerned are Terrible. The longer you keep them the sweeter they get. They start to dehydrate and shrink. We keep them refrigerated. This is mainly due to a grub that can grow inside of them. If you keep them at room temp over half will develope the grub. We'll still be eating ones that are refrigerated till the end of winter on a good harvest year.

I also picked two 5 gallon buckets of red oak acorns. My friend asked for them. Not sure of his intentions yet.

I heard that if you put the raw chestnuts in 115F to 120F water for 15 to 20 minutes it kills the chestnut grubs and doesn't alter the taste, or kills the chestnut embryo, if you want to grow it. I've never tried it because I don't have chestnuts.

Oak trees, especially burr and white oak, sell really well. Red oak sells less well, at least around here. The burr oaks are very popular with deer hunters who plant food plots.

I need to buy the smaller nut weasel for acorns, small hickory nuts and hazelnuts.

Keith

Keith, I did put the chestnuts in the hot water one year following directions I found. It still gave them that "roasted" texture that I didn't like. It was worth a try. I've found refrigeration to be the best for me. Also, picking them every day as they fall so the nut never gets a chance to be too warm too long.
Might go pick up some walnuts Thursday, not a large crop around me on most trees. Was really wanting to make and concentrate some walnut trap dye for next years prep work.

Chestnuts are an acquired taste,... one that I never acquired, lol
They're very popular around Christmas with Italians, at least the old school ones. Mostly roasted, there used to be a pretty good demand in NYC with roasted ones from street vendors, I don't know if it still is, I don't go there, lol

Here is some swamper hickory nuts I knocked off when I cut a dead ash. Quarter for size comparison.

Those look like some very nice shellbark hickory nuts.

Keith

You asked for it……

I started hulling nuts yesterday evening, both heartnuts and black walnuts. Here's some heartnuts.



Keith

I am not familiar with heart nuts. What do you do with them?

Heartnuts are a sport of the Asian walnut that has a heart shaped shell and heart shaped nut meat, that easily comes out in one piece, in the named cultivars. A lot of people call them Japanese walnuts. They open like a locket. A single light tap on the side is usually sufficient to open them in two perfect, heart shaped pieces. They are a mild flavored walnut, that tastes a little bit like a macadamia nut.

Heartnuts produce nuts from seed in 3 years. They can hybridize with black walnuts, butternuts and English walnuts. The next generation can be very variable. Most butternuts, that survived the blight, have heartnut genetics now.

The heart shaped nut meats sell really well and the half shells are often used for crafts. The shells are sometimes crushed and used for giving traction to snow tires, like metal studs are.



Keith

Nice Keith, I've never seen those before

The heartnuts, because of the shape, make beautiful dessert toppings. They make heart shaped chocolate molds that you can insert a heartnut meat in before filling them with chocolate. The nuts fill out the chocolates well.

If I can afford it in the Spring, I want to purchase some larger, grafted, select cultivars of heart nuts, that are a few years old. If I can't, I'll graft select cultivars on black walnuts saplings I grew from seed this year. It will just take 2 or 3 years longer to get nuts.

Keith