Chestnut Trees

There are three specific trees and a number of 'wild' ones.

They mostly came from my initial sowing of seeds in the far north west. 1 Noting that rodents where eating them I planted one elsewhere with protection. That is now a 23' tree producing many nuts but only a few of any use.

2 One I planted on Kaia's grave, and 3 one that Gavin grew from other seed was planted on my dad's grave this year: the walnut having died.

There are also a few that have sprung up, maybe from squirrels burying some.

2025

Harvest

Interesting:~ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/oct/26/how-to-make-chestnut-liqueur
October 31st Made a right mess of the crop. I kept a few kilos in a plastic tub and most of them wither rotted or became infested with some creatures, there were lots of eggs in many. Altogether I haven't got 800g from 4Kg ie.20% and after checking those many are not edible. It seems as when left there is a turn where they go hard and even cooking doesn't help in some cases. Generally difficult to remove the inner skins, so really a 90% plus failure on my part.

October 30th After a few messy baking runs I may go by the following: Italian Guide
However with the ones sitting by the stove for the last couple of weeks are very dry so I have just removed the outer skin after scoring with a Stanley Knife with about four mm of blade protruding.

230g Raw and Peeled
Raw and Dry: Store for future use.


October 24th Collected another 500g grams mostly from the far trees. The fallen leaves have covered a lot, so this is a bit late. Could do with clearing around the far trees.

October 9th Collected some 3Kg under the 'main' tree and another 500g grams on the 7th from another tree.
  • I have removed the peel from some now, 230g and they look fine, but may soak and rub them down tomorrow, then dry and store
    230g Raw and Peeled
    230g Raw and Peeled
    Very easy to peel when 'fresh'



2023 October 20th Today I scavenged the ground under the 'main' tree and collected some >1.5Kg : will see what weight that is when they have dried for 2 or 3 weeks. Later further a further <1.5Kg from trees to the west. There are three trees two of which I can see I planted/sowed the seeds as there are plastic tubes attached to them which were to protect the seeds and saplings from rodents and deer etc.