Growing Nuts in the Garden

 Pics: A young cobnut orchard

Have you ever thought about growing a nut tree?

 

A lot of people have and for good reason, they can produce a huge crop for the winter months, be decorative and a haven for wildlife. Nut trees will be a great addition to any medium or large sized garden.

I was thinking that up here in Inishowen might be a bit harsh for nut growing but if we can find a sheltered spot there’s no reason we can’t grow a wide variety which can include cobnuts, walnuts, chestnuts, heartnuts, hickory, hican, ginkgo, pinenuts, Monkey Puzzle and almonds.

I thought some expert advice was needed here so I have been chatting to one of the country’s best known and knowledgeable growers, Andy Wilson from the Fruit and Nut specialist nursery in Westport. 

Andy can confirm that there is a lot of interest in nut growing and gets over 3000 enquiries a year from people asking about how to grow the trees and where to get them from.

Andy has a lot of knowledge as he has been growing trees since he was about 10 years old. Starting out with walnuts and cobnuts in Ireland in 1984, then in 2006 progressing to set up the Fruit and Nut nursery in Westport, which is Ireland's principal supplier of nut trees.

Growing Nut Trees

What type of nut trees grow in Ireland?

Lots of kinds, but the most common cultivated type is the cobnut (a cultivated version of the native

hazelnut)Other nut species include walnut, chestnut, heartnut, pinenut and Monkey Puzzle.

Which type would be best for small gardens/ large gardens?

Nothing is really suitable for small gardens but cobnuts are suitable for medium sized gardens. The other nut species grow into big trees and require lots of space.

What requirements do they need?

Shelter - essential (except for pinenut Pinus pinea, which is very wind tolerant)

Sunny position - essential (too much shade is just as bad as too little shelter)

Well drained deep soil - essential in all cases. Cobnuts are the most tolerant of wetter conditions but it's always better to try to improve drainage - even if it takes a year or two to accomplish - rather than to plant in wet ground.

Absence of late spring frosts - essential for walnuts, chestnuts and heartnuts and strongly advisable for all other nuts.

Andy also tells us : “People often think they can plant nut trees in a bit of waste ground but

actually they should really be thinking of their BEST land.”

Can you grow them from seeds?

Except for the pinenut and Monkey Puzzle, no. And it would be a long wait for the first nuts!

Can you grow them from cuttings, offshoots?

Cobnuts can be grown from sucker from other cobnuts. Walnuts and chestnuts are normally propagated by grafting.

How many should I plant?

The hazel, cob and filbert nuts are all similar, forming large bushes. A mixture of several varieties will do best, as this will help the pollination.

Do any grow really big?

Sweet chestnuts grow too big for most gardens and only crop after long summers, which could limit growing them in Inishowen a bit.  Walnuts are also huge trees and take years to crop so you could plant one for the next generation!

When is the best time to plant nut trees?

Bareroot

Barerooted nut trees can be planted from mid March to mid April. Normally a lot of gardeners feel it’s better to plant in the autumn but the trees are in leaf until November and very few suppliers will lift before leaf fall. By December the ground is usually wet and horrible (not this year so far!) and after that it's generally better to wait until things begin drying out and warming up in the spring.

However experienced gardeners will have their own preferences and may choose to plant before mid-March if the weather and ground conditions are good.

Container grown

Container-grown trees can be planted all year round but are generally best planted mid-March to early May.  The extra expense for container-grown trees is only really justified for pinenuts, Monkey Puzzle trees and the evergreen oaks (the latter produce an edible acorn). The other trees are best planted barerooted.

How long until we get nuts?

2-4 years with cobnuts but up to 50 with the Monkey Puzzle.

Do they make good wildlife habitats?

All nut trees support some wildlife, but cobnuts would be the best as from a wildlife perspective they're the same as the wild hazel.

Do they require a lot of pruning?

Cobnuts require regular pruning if they are to crop well. Most other nut trees require annual pruning for the first 4-8 years (until the tree develops a good shape), but not so much after that.

Andy’s  nursery offers a free, no-obligation email advice service  so if you wanted to get ready for growing nut trees next year contact him on office@fruitandnut.ie or via the website fruitandnut.ie

Wood Ash in the Garden

More and more of us are turning to wood burning to keep warm.  If we don’t mix the burnt ashes with coal, there’s no reason why we can’t add them to the garden or compost heap. 

Wood ash is a great addition to the garden as it contains potassium or potash.

Just as it does in humans, potassium regulates plants’ water balance (so tissue is firm and juicy), and has a part in transporting food within the plant and creating sugars and starches. Without enough, vegetables are more vulnerable to drought, frost, pests and diseases. So adding this to the garden is a great way to keep a balanced soil

Ash in the Compost Heap

Wood ashes make a great addition to the compost heap. If you have a lot add gradually over time as they are alkaline and raising the pH too much will affect the bacteria and worms at work. It’s better to keep the ash in a nearby container and sprinkle on a layer every so often.

If you tend to compost a lot of acidic material, such as fruit waste, the ashes will help to keep the compost at a lower pH and reduce the need to lime the vegetable plots at a later date. It could also help to dry the heap and keep the pesky fruit flies at bay.

Wood Ash as a Substitute for Lime

It is possible to substitute for the usual ground limestone. However, home-produced ash isn’t a standardized product, which means its content will vary, but I’d find that an enjoyable challenge. Hardwoods, for example, generally produce more ash and contain more nutrients than softwood. Bonfire ash is even more variable, because of the mix of plant tissue.

Like the potash content, the calcium carbonate content will also vary (although it’s unlikely to contain more than half that of ground limestone), so it’s a good idea to test the pH of your soil before adding the ash and three to six months after, to check on its effect. It wouldn’t hurt to check up on the potassium content while you’re at it. There’s no point in adding potash to a soil that’s already high in potassium, as too much can affect the plants’ take-up of other nutrients.

Where Not to Use Wood Ash in the Garden

Being alkaline, wood ash obviously isn’t an ideal addition if your soil already has a pH of 7.5 or greater. There’s no point in spreading it around acid-loving plants such as blueberries or hydrangeas. Nor is it recommended for areas where you intend to grow potatoes (much though they enjoy potassium) as increased alkalinity can encourage the fungus, potato scab.

It’s also worth remembering that potash is extremely soluble, so keeping it dry before use is advised (this includes before adding it to the compost heap). Leave your ashes out in the rain and all the potash will wash out and you’ll be left with a sticky and fairly useless sludge. If you pile a large amount of ash in one area, you also risk over-liming that area and damaging nearby plants.

Adding Ash Direct to the Soil

Sprinkling ash straight onto the soil could deters slugs and snail, until it gets wet though, then its effectiveness wears off. Some also claim sprinkling ash in the drills when you sow carrots, and dusting it on turnips to keep carrot and turnip fly away.

Spring and autumn are said to be the best time to spread the ash around but as we accumulate most of it in the winter I think it can be spread it around at other times whenever it’s available and you might as well if you know you can’t keep it bone-dry. Root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, peas and beans (pods are a better weight and colour) and fruit all appreciate potash.

Fruit

 If you have only a little potash, it should go to dessert apples, redcurrants and gooseberries first, then to cooking apples, pears, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. Plums, apricots, cherries and blackcurrants appreciate a regular sprinkle, but don’t need it so much.

Flower Sprouts and Growing Your Own Clothes using Mycelium

There aren’t many of us who escaped the recent frosts, and thank goodness.  Last year we didn’t really get temperatures below freezing so had a strange year in the garden, there seemed to be a bit of an imbalance, mainly too many slugs. I’ll definitely be getting my cacti plants inside this year; I don’t think I will get away with them not being killed off this winter. 

The polytunnel is looking a bit untidy after the cold snap. Most of the annual plants have given up and microbes are helping them to decay back into the soil very quickly. I do have some microgreens growing in a small cloche. I have peas, kale, broccoli all growing well and all that is needed is to pop in there with a pair of scissors and snip the young stems off then put them in a salad stir fry or scatter them in a sandwich like you would cress. 

 Flower Sprouts

There are some of us out there that will be planting beans, peas and sweet peas, onions and other plants to give them a good start for next year, but that’s just not me. I do try every year to be on the ball and organized but as the garden is so much of a mess now with things dying back I can’t see that far forward until spring to plant anything. Maybe one day I’ll forward plan but it won’t be any time soon. Nature can do the tidying for a few weeks yet.

Flower Sprouts

I have seen a plant that I’m going to try next year. Known as Flower Sprouts here and Kalettes in the US, this is the result of 15 years work (using traditional breeding techniques called genetic engineering) from the British vegetable seed house Tozer Seeds. Flower Sprouts are a non-GMO vegetable developed through traditional hybridization and not genetic modification. The vegetable we see is very similar to a brussel sprout that has lost its firmness and opened up or like a small open cabbage. It doesn’t look that different to normal kale left until spring when the new soft shoots appear on the stem, but I’m sure the 15 years of work will have not have been for nothing apart from a marketing ploy. Well I hope anyway.

The inspiration behind the plant came from a desire to create a kale type vegetable which was versatile and easy to prepare. Crossing kale with brussels sprouts was a natural fit since they are both from the Brassica Oleracea species which also includes cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

It’s worth trying even for a novelty value. These plants are new but actually on the market now in Lidl. The seeds will be available everywhere soon I should think.

Grow your own Clothes, and Furniture

As I am on the subject of new innovations there’s a startup company called MycoWorks who aim to turn industrial design on its head by using mycelium, the root-like fibres of mushrooms, for environmentally friendly building materials, furniture, clothing and packaging.

Mycelium can be grown in almost any kind of agriculture waste, including sawdust and pistachio shells. MycoWorks inoculates it with the live culture of the reishi mushroom, which will feed off of anything, unlike other pickier mushrooms. The mushrooms grow together within the material, which can be configured into any shape, forming natural polymers that adhere like glue. The material is then baked to kill the organisms, so that if it ever got wet, mushrooms wouldn’t start sprouting again. You can grow building grade strength bricks similar to concrete strenght or a leather substitute in just two weeks which is stronger than cowhide. Clothing can be grown out of it and you don’t need to do any sewing as the mycelium can attach itself to zips and seams, you can literarally grow the material around anything. I thought hemp was the way to go with the textile, building and furniture industries but I quite fancy growing my own chairs and tables to fit inside a fungi grown house.

Identifying Plants

The app identified the Taraxacum officinale without any bother

I’ve got a plant identification app on my phone to play with. I’ve seen them around before and didn’t really take much notice of them, until this one came along, the interactivity and ability to be added to attract my attention. The database grows daily as new plants are added. The app is called Pl@ntNet and calls themselves an image sharing and retrieval application for the identification of plants.

It is developed by scientists from four French research organisations and the Tela Botanica network, with the financial support of Agropolis fondation. This means that the app isn’t really working as well in non-European countries yet, but I’m sure they will soon as plants are added.

Among other features, this free app helps identifying plant species from photographs, through visual recognition software. Plant species that are well enough illustrated in the botanical reference database can be easily recognized. The plants can be recognized by leaf, flower, fruit or stem and so far has been very successful for me. I’ve identified most flowers in the garden through it and also a few weeds. It has no bother finding nasturtiums and when I took a photo of a tallow dandelion type flower on the lawn it gave me a few options for what it could be, impressively none of them were the dandelion. It could tell the difference in the petal shape. It turns out it was either a Taraxacum officinale or a sonchus, and even with the photos I couldn’t tell the difference. Narrowing it down to two practically identical plants was impressive. You then get the option to confirm the ident was positive and there’s a star rating for accuracy.

The number of species and the number of images used by the application evolve with contributions of end users to the project.

It doesn't allow the identification of ornamental plants really and it works even better when the pictures submitted are focused on one organ. Pictures of tree leaves on uniform background provide the most relevant results.

I think that the app will be well used by me as I spot other plants and I’m sure there are other equally good ones out there that’ll do the job as well, especially the ones that are interactive with an ever growing database of identifications.

On the subject of identifying plants. There are a lot of plants that are in the garden highlighting the soil type and condition; most of them are classed as weeds

Garden soil conditions and weeds go hand in hand, so we can take advantage of the clues given for soil types and use the weeds to identify potential problems. Large populations of weed growth can signal poor soil conditions as well as soil type. 

Soil Types and Weeds

Using weeds as indicators of soil conditions can be helpful when fixing problem areas in the landscape.

Poor soil can include anything from moist, poorly drained soil to dry, sandy soil. It may also include heavy clay soil and hard compacted soil. Even fertile soils have their share of weeds. And some weeds will take up residence just about anywhere, such as dandelions, making it more difficult to determine soil conditions without closer examination. Let’s look at some of the most common weeds as indicators of soil conditions: 

Wet/moist soil weeds

Moss Joe-pye weed, Spotted spurge, Knotweed, Chickweed, Crabgrass, Ground ivy, Violets Sedge.

Dry/sandy soil weeds

Sorrel, Thistle, Speedwell, Garlic mustard, Sandbur, Yarrow, Nettle, Carpetweed, Pigweed,

Heavy clay soil weeds

Plantain, Nettle, Quack grass, Hard

Compacted soil weeds

Chickweed, Goosegrass, Knotweed, Mustard, Morning glory, Dandelion, Nettle, Plantain.

Poor/low fertility soil weeds

Yarrow, Oxeye daisy, Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot), Mullein, Ragweed, Fennel, Thistle, Plantain, Mugwort ,Dandelion, Crabgrass, Clover,

 Fertile/well-drained soil weeds

Foxtail, Chicory, Horehound, Dandelion, Purslane, Lambsquarters.

Acidic soil weeds

Oxeye daisy, wild strawberries, Plantain, Knotweed, Sorrel, Moss.

Alkaline soil weeds Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot), Chickweed, Spotted spurge, Chicory.

And the best thing is that now we have apps for identifying the weeds we can not only going out about them but also see just why it is that particular types are trying to take over the garden. It’ll be a case of doing a bit of research to see how we can amend the ground making the environment happier to help the plants we do want to grow. 

Technology eh. Isn’t it great?