Nut suggestions for Northern Europe

Simon Flygare wrote:
I found this lady that grows apricots in her food forest in denmark, but i´m not sure of the whereabouts of the forest.

On Samsø apparently
I may have to give apricots a go. I got figs this year in October, but that does have a south facing wall (my only one) I've added an apricot tree to the christmas list plus where to buy it.. maybe just maybe one will turn up.

Skandi Rogers wrote:

Simon Flygare wrote:
I found this lady that grows apricots in her food forest in denmark, but i´m not sure of the whereabouts of the forest.

On Samsø apparently
I may have to give apricots a go. I got figs this year in October, but that does have a south facing wall (my only one) I've added an apricot tree to the christmas list plus where to buy it.. maybe just maybe one will turn up.

Lots of danish nurseries sell them. Just google abrikos til salg, and they will pop up. I gathered chestnuts from about 10 different trees this fall. Its so interesting to see how much the genetics of non grafted trees vary. I found some very big ones that came from trees the size of very big oak trees. They was as big as the ones imported from france. A funny thing I noticed was that the small ones usually have 2-3 edible sized nuts in the husks,  where the very big ones only had 1.  

Skandi Rogers wrote:

Anton Jacobski Hedman wrote:[
There are hardy apricot varieties that can be grown in Northern Europe. Examples of such varieties would be: Harcot, Hargrand, Kuresia, Orangered, Nancy. Some Hungarian varieties might also work like Gönczi Magyar/"Best Hungarian" and a few others. I know people growing apricots with success in south Sweden outdoors using some of these varieties!! I've also planted apricots from seed that survived the winter without problem, next year I will also see if the apricots grown from seed will be able to set fruit as they have made a lot of fruit buds now. I also have a couple of grafted varieties(Kuresia and Gönczi magyar). If we can grow them in south Sweden, shouldn't you be able to do the same in Denmark? Also in Russia they developed extra hardy apricot cultivars during the USSR era, but I've yet to hear about these varieties being available in Western Europe. Still the question would be if the sweet pitted apricots can survive in places like Denmark. In the US Starkbros have a hardy sweet pitted variety of apricot by the name "Sweetheart" originating in Idaho which is in a similar USDA hardiness zone as Denmark, but I don't know if there is any nursery in Europe that supplies this tree.

What are the summer temperatures like in southern sweden? It's not our winter temperatures that are the problem (0F is a rare low) it's the total lack of heat in the summer. Idaho has 2 months longer without frost and a much higher summer day temperature than I have. I see my favourite tree shop has Hargrand though it says it needs a south facing wall to fruit. If they wern't so expensive it might be worth a shot, Maybe I will add them to my xmas wish list, although are they a sweet seeded apricot? I love apricots anyway so having the fruit would not be a bad thing.

Some sources say that Harcot has sweet kernels but they are a bit conflicting with others of the seeds being not-so-sweet. Unfortunately the other varieties mentioned except for the Sweetheart one likely do not have sweet kernels. This is the average temperature in July: https://www.smhi.se/polopoly_fs/1.3990.1490013080!/image/p41.png_gen/derivatives/Original_1256px/image/p41.png So about 16 C in the areas where apricots can definitely grow successfully(and I've heard that some of the hardier varietes can handle a bit lower than that and grow farther north).

Simon Flygare wrote:Apricots need a good amout of heat to fully ripen. But its not imposible here in denmark (at least in milder areas) to grow out in the open, without a greenhouse. I´ve heard of and seen pictures of trees that are fruiting and doing allright. I  think our rainy summers can problematic though due to fungi. Peaches grow fine too but peach leaf curl can be a problem in wet summers. I got about 20-30 peaches on my little 5 year old tree last year, that are planted out in the open.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LqpPTKnJpo&ab_channel=Inspiratoriet
I found this lady that grows apricots in her food forest in denmark, but i´m not sure of the whereabouts of the forest.

Yes I do believe that apricots do probably need more heat than peaches. Also fungus killing off branches is another problem, apricots are sensitive to that but if the tree can get to a decent size it may not have that much more problem from fungus anymore I think. I've even heard arguments that it's the fungus from the higher humidity levels that is the main issue with apricots here, rather than temperature.

Hardy peach varieties do quite good here, and you can even grow them from seed from ordinary grocery store fruit in south Sweden with success. I've heard people getting tons of peaches and nectarines just a few years after planting a seed from an ordinary grocery store peach(usually they are from Spain and Italy). I have a Riga peach that gets a lot of flowers and sets a lot of fruit each year, but the tree is very small and seems to have a problem with fungus killing off branches almost at a faster rate than the tree can make new ones. I also think it was pruned too much in the nursery so it never had a chance to grow that many branches in the first place which would have otherwise helped it to grow bigger faster and survive/recover from the fungus damage better in extra wet summers. But fruit bud and flower wise it has no problem with surviving the cold and any eventual frosts, although where I live by the time they flower here the risk of any particular damaging frost is already gone.

Next year it will be interesting to see how well my apricots have done and whether they will get a chance at setting fruit from its fruit buds.

Simon Flygare wrote:

Lots of danish nurseries sell them. Just google abrikos til salg, and they will pop up. I gathered chestnuts from about 10 different trees this fall. Its so interesting to see how much the genetics of non grafted trees vary. I found some very big ones that came from trees the size of very big oak trees. They was as big as the ones imported from france. A funny thing I noticed was that the small ones usually have 2-3 edible sized nuts in the husks,  where the very big ones only had 1.  

I use these guys https://kridtvejsplanter.dk They're local to me and they also do larger amounts of trees for good prices as well. We got 100% success with the 40 raspberries and 30 hazelnuts we planted last year. They do mail order as well as pickup if you don't happen to live all the way out here.

Simon Flygare wrote:

Skandi Rogers wrote:

Simon Flygare wrote:
I found this lady that grows apricots in her food forest in denmark, but i´m not sure of the whereabouts of the forest.

On Samsø apparently
I may have to give apricots a go. I got figs this year in October, but that does have a south facing wall (my only one) I've added an apricot tree to the christmas list plus where to buy it.. maybe just maybe one will turn up.

Lots of danish nurseries sell them. Just google abrikos til salg, and they will pop up. I gathered chestnuts from about 10 different trees this fall. Its so interesting to see how much the genetics of non grafted trees vary. I found some very big ones that came from trees the size of very big oak trees. They was as big as the ones imported from france. A funny thing I noticed was that the small ones usually have 2-3 edible sized nuts in the husks,  where the very big ones only had 1.  

Wow, that's interesting. Didn't know that there could be more than one nut inside the husk. Did you pick the chestnuts for eating or planting? You can clone the big nut varieties with cuttings otherwise, although not sure how good their root systems are compared to seedlings or budded trees and from what I hear they aren't that easy to root - but still possible. If for eating was there any big differences in taste, texture etc between the variously sized chestnuts?

I ate some and saved the rest for stratifying in the fridge. It´s common for chestnuts to have 2-3 nuts in the husk, but I found it interesting that the big ones only had one. Is it the growing conditions that only allow them to make one big and fully ripened nut, or is it genetic? I think it´s difficult to root chestnuts. But the idea is to grow out some of the nuts as seedling trees and get a large span of diverse trees hopefully with a good size of nuts. The rest will be grafted with the mother tree.

Simon Flygare wrote: Is it the growing conditions that only allow them to make one big and fully ripened nut, or is it genetic? I think it´s difficult to root chestnuts.  

I'm pretty sure I've read that it is genetic. Yes here -

Marrons bear single nuts within the seeds, châtaignes bear multiple nuts in one seed separated by a papery inner shell.

from https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/product-category/plants/nuts/chestnuts/

First ever flowers on my bladdernuts this year. I have two plants from different sources so fingers crossed for nuts! They haven't fully opened yet, but they look very bridal!

I found this video interview of Anders Lindén at an agroforestry farm in Sweden. He grows and has planted monkey puzzle, chestnuts, other nuts, even including almonds and Gingko! I suspect his summers may be slightly warmer than mine, but still very inspiring.

This is a well put together film about agroforestry and farming economy and ecology. I particularly liked the quote from Wenden Berry, and the mindset shift for returning to the land (being felt as a failure). Also the thought of Agroforestry being a shift from a production industry (farming) to a caring profession. The film is longer than I normally like to watch, but switch the English subtitles on, speed it up just a trifle, and you will enjoy it!

Update on my walnut trees. I planted three different grafted cultivars in 2022. I got some female flowers on two of the trees last year and some male and female flowers on one tree (Broadview) this year. Amazingly enough two fruit developed and just fell off the tree this week. One had a slightly deformed casing and the nut inside was slightly split as well so we ate it - very white flesh and no tannin like flavour at all.

First walnut from Broadview

We had such a rubbish summer too with only a bit of warmth in May and September, otherwise it barely got to 15 degrees C most of the year. The second nut fell off in the strong winds yesterday, a pity as it is still pretty green.

Walnut in green outer casing

I'm thinking of planting this one. I know it is probably very underripe, but there is the chance it is viable, and the meat in it will be pretty small.

The first walnut on Skye?