One of the staples of our homestead will be the fruit orchard but something

else I wanted to be sure to include is hard mast and chestnuts fit the bill

perfectly. They are easy to start from seed, they produce nuts very fast and

produce a crop every year. The nuts for planting were from Dunstan chestnut

trees which are blight resistant hybrids of the American Chestnuts which

once filled the forests of the eastern US. I ordered 1 pound of nuts from

Chestnut Ridge of Pike County which equaled about 50 nuts.

The nuts arrived in mid-October and I quickly started the cold

stratification process. I used sphagnum moss as the moisture holding medium

and a 1 gallon freezer bag to hold everything. The nuts need to stay moist,

but not too wet. The moss works well as it doesn’t mold like some mediums

will. (I have seen people use wet sand or peat moss for this as well) I put

the nuts in the refrigerator and left the bag open to let some air circulate

to prevent molding. The nuts were checked every couple weeks and the bag

rotated to keep the moisture even.

At the end of January, the nuts had started to produce the taproot

tip from point of the nut. This was my queue that it was time to plant them

in pots to be started indoors. On January 31st, I planted them in the

starting pots. Video link for mobile

It took about 2 weeks until the first sprouts of the trees started

to come out of the pots.

It took another week for the first leaf buds to appear and start to

open.



After that, they started growing quite quickly. I added a cheap, $15

LED grow light since I did not have a good space indoor for them to get any

direct sunlight. (I did not do a comparison with and without the light but

is something for the future.) In 2 weeks, some of the trees were over a foot

tall with multiple leaves.

Earlier I had mentioned that there were about 50 nuts delivered. I

lost 4 to mold during the stratification. I had 36 pots available and 10

stayed in the fridge. All 36 that were planted germinated and started

growing, but one did have the taproot grow back into itself and was not

going to do well so it was replaced with a nut from the fridge. The best of

these trees will be planted orchard style for us. The rest will be planted

around the property for wildlife, hunting plots, and just as extra food if

ever needed.

The plan is to plant these trees towards the end of April after the

last frost date using 60″ tree tubes. The tubes will stay on until the

trunks are large enough to break them and will not be needed at that point

anymore. More updates on these to follow as they progress!