Hi Jon,
I'll take an opening stab ... just to get the conversation started.
How quickly can you bring nut trees and shrubs to bearing? This depends on a lot of factors, of
course.
Growing season? Frost free days?
What will grow well in your area? Do you have oak? Do area oaks produce acorns? Any beech trees? Look for hints by looking for what already wants to grow around you and perhaps from the experiments of others who have asked the same question before you in your neighborhood.
What grows nutty an wild around you? Usually, there are at least some hazelnut shrubs.
And everything depends on how well a plant is grown ... how free of environmental stresses like wind and depredation of animals for example.
How "rich" and nourishing is the soil.
I've grown a lot of different nut and fruit trees. Take for example something like hardy, hybrid chestnuts (which I like to grow). If I can catch a precocious (early in life stage producer), and fairly fast growing, I've seen chestnut trees produce nuts three years from their own nut stage. In other words, from nuts harvested in 2000, trees are started and first nuts present by 2003. But this is VERY unusual, and still a far cry from a crop of nuts worth getting excited about.
And I have some trees that did not produce until they were 10 years or older.
So the question you ask takes me all over the board of possibilities. Chestnuts and hazelnuts can produce viable crops earlier than black walnuts. Oaks can take two generations to produce a serious crop.
What do you want to grow? Start with what you like and give it a try. I've killed many thousands of trees through sheer stupidity and experimentation. How well can you personally grow a tree? Find out what it takes and do your best.
Please tell us more about your region and
local conditions.
