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what to do with chestnut husks?

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posted 16 years ago

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For those who haven't experienced chestnuts husks: yow! They're very spiky, with spikes that don't decompose quickly either and can still maim bare feet the following year.

Under the chestnut in my yard is prime real estate. The path we walk to the garden goes there. My reasons for wanting the husks somewhere else:
1) it's easier for harvesting to see where i've already picked through
2) it doesn't work with bare feet at all
3) i'd like to use that area as a mulched + mushrooms area (it won't interfere with chestnut harvest and will make fallen chestnuts still fairly easy to see)

But, what to do with the buggers? It's kind of overkill to put them anywhere I don't want creatures to get to. Plus they decompose so slowly they're a hassle later.

I guess I could just leave them through the harvest, and then mulch on top later, squishing them out of sight. But not this year.

Any ideas!
Right now they're just going to the municipal yard waste. And it's an overflowing container.

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Susan Monroe

Posts: 1093

Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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Are the husks green and moist or brown and woody? Are the husks whole, or in halves or pieces?

You might try offering them as stock feed on FreeCycle.

If they're dry, burn them?

Since I've never seen one, I really don't know what I'm talking about, although farmers have used them as stock feed in the past.

Sue

Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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could you run them through a chipper?

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Kelda Miller

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posted 16 years ago

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all of the above: some green, some rotting and brown. some in halves some in pieces. I dumped an experimental bucket over into the goat pen to see if they would go for it. Nada. They didn't even muss around with it to find any leftover chestnuts. So I think it's out for an animal feed.

And chipper/shredder, would it take small bits of stuff? Who will be the delegated person with the stick shoving it in there? (just joking. that may work. i've just never seen small stuff go into a shredder, just out.) The husks are more or less palm size.

I may just build a huge compost pile in the way back. It will have to decompose eventually. Moreso if it's in a pile. But from the look of it, and last year's, there'll be prickly bits in it for a long while. (Years)

I was thinking today: what if the chestnut likes to have thorns all around it's base? Like it's the plants way of saying 'don't mess with my topsoil'. I wonder it needs some of the nutrients from the husks. I'm leaving all it's leaves in place. But does it want more?

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Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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that brings up a good point.. If you remove the "debris" from your garden/lawn then you have to replace it. Otherwise you are just slowly depleting your soil. Plan on leaving them or composting them and eventually return them.

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Susan Monroe

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Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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How about collecting all the debris from under the chestnut tree, dump it into a hugelkultur pile, plant a tree there, let the stuff rot forever, and then steal bagged leaves from your neighbors (creeping around the night before trash pickup with your cart or hand truck), and put them under the chestnut tree?

And hope you don't get a bunch of bags of spikey chestnut husks!

Sue

Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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why make it criminal! people PAY to have others remove leaves from their yard. Its a business oppurtunity!

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Susan Monroe

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Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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It was a joke. I'm going to the next town today to collect leaves (that sounds like a waste of gas, doesn't it?). They will probably be thrilled.

Sue

Leah Sattler

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posted 16 years ago

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oh I know you were kidding but it just is a reminder that sometimes people will pay you to take the stuff you want!

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Kelda Miller

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posted 16 years ago

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As you may have heard me say already, I live near a cemetary. Some of my neighbors have already established with the cemetary folks a 'leaf drop-off' area. I'm welcome to take from the pile as much as I want (and I believe the pile will just rejuvanate all the more that we use it). So I think I'll 'resupply nutrients' that way to the chestnut. And I'm of course leaving the chestnut leaves.

Maybe the hassle of dealing with the husks won't be worth it next year. I'm sure it's making harvest a slower process. Maybe I'll just pile stuff on Top of the husks and that way eliminate the prickly factor.

this year: my harvesting system is in place, and I know where i've covered. so that's one part of the experiment...

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posted 16 years ago

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Leah Sattler wrote:
why make it criminal! people PAY to have others remove leaves from their yard. Its a business oppurtunity!

Ahhh, yes it is, and leaf cleanup is big dollars.

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Dave Boehnlein

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Location: Orcas Island, WA

posted 16 years ago

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A couple ideas off the top of my head:

[li]Sheet mulch over them each year.[/li]
[li]Make a hot compost pile with them.[/li]
[li]Try feeding them to different critters (e.g. pigs). I don't think goats like things once they've been on the ground.[/li]
[li]Wear sandals.

[/li]

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Kelda Miller

Posts: 769

posted 16 years ago

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pigs huh? that might be worth a try, a friend of mine raises pigs. i'll get some over to her...
(the husks are still sitting in a huge pile in the driveway, i guess one could call that some kind of a slow compost....)

and That's why the goats didn't touch it, they've been on the ground (well and are terribly unpleasant foodstuffs anyway).

On that note, I pulled tons of good stuff for them last week though, horsetail, runner grasses, and they Totally turned up their noses to it even though i know they usually love that stuff. must've been because i had it all mixed up with soil too. gosh they're picky

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Susan Monroe

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Location: Western WA

posted 16 years ago

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"Gosh they're picky"

It's like cats. Cats can suddenly turn up their nose at something for no obvious reason. These are the same cats that would perfectly happy eating half-rotten food out of garbage cans and mouse guts.

Sue

Emerson White

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Location: Alaska

posted 15 years ago

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Zombie thread!

I doubt that any animal would be likely to eat the husks, they are a structure that evolved with the aim that it not be eaten. I think that putting the dried husks into a good healthy fire in a burn barrel would be a good step, thorns and spines tend to pop in my experience but in a barrel that doesn't matter as much, then you get any nutrient that isn't carried on the wind to return to your tree and close the cycle.

Fritz Klein

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posted 12 years ago

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I have the same problem. Composting seems not an option as they don't readily break down, and eventually get mixed into soil that I am weeding or planting in, and I still get stung. Burning seems the only good way, but we can't do that here. shredding only leaves them the same, but in zillions of pieces.

Burra Maluca

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posted 12 years ago

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I have one word - hugelkulture!

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Michael Parks

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posted 6 years ago

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We both compost them in bulk in out of the way spots, and burn them up near the house.
Put into wire fencing, so they are raised, they burn better, but still not great.
Interestingly, chestnuts that fall into a pile a few feet deep can overwinter, sprout and grow right there.
Perhaps the critters can't get them. It happens here. and Pecans do it too.

William Bronson

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posted 6 years ago

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It sounds like they would make good biochar...

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Mike Barkley

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posted 6 years ago

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I've been adding them to a hugelhole & to the compost piles. This thread gave me an interesting idea though. A foot or two wide barrier of these hard pointy husks of pain spread around the outer perimeter of a garden would keep most small critters out of the garden. Maybe even deer if the hulks were spread even wider.

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Michael Parks

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posted 6 years ago

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I like your critter fence made of burrs, but how do you work the gate?
I can say that I have never seen a critter in any of my burr piles.

Mike Barkley

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posted 6 years ago

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Was thinking it would look more like a burr sidewalk than a fence. Just step over.

Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.

Pearl Sutton

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posted 6 years ago

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Mike Barkley wrote: A foot or two wide barrier of these hard pointy husks of pain spread around the outer perimeter of a garden would keep most small critters out of the garden.

You may have just solved a couple of problems for me! I want chestnut trees, dealing with the husks has been a complicated thought, and dealing with bunnies has been a problem.

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Valerie Naim

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posted 4 years ago

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I pick them up w leather gloves & put in buckets for winter, then toss em in with kindling for my wood stove. I burn mostly oak & put them put the ashes & charcoal in my compost. I like the garden edge idea but I know weeds will evolve & I’ll get owwwies.
The Cherokee make awesome chestnut bread.

taraz pariseau

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posted 1 year ago

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I had an idea of running them through a pelleted feed making machine. It grind stuff up and makes tight little pellets out of it. I'm sure it can grind those up as well.

At that point would they poison the animals to feed them to them or would they just need to be composted or burned as pelleted wood pellets. My idea was to use them for feed but if they're toxic to anything then I don't want to take a chance. Because the pellets can be used lots of different places without the spikyness

Anne Miller

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posted 1 year ago

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A friend of mine used to collect walnuts off the ground to give as gifts for folks who smoked meat.

Would chestnut husks be good for smoking meat or making biochar?

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Ron Stanley

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posted 8 months ago

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I collect my husks and use two black plastic rubbish bins to store them. It takes up to two years to decompose, but the compost is amazing.

Lance Box

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posted 8 months ago

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I like the biochar idea. Geoff Lawton digs big holes and drops his pioneer thorns into the hole. Over time, the hole fills up and becomes a great location for growing trees and stuff.

Pj Richardson

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Location: Los Angeles, United States

posted 8 months ago

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I put them along the bottom of the fence line to deter neighbor dogs and cats. Works pretty well and also keeps the weeds down a bit.

Lexie Smith

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posted 8 months ago

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Pigs won’t eat them, at least our pigs are smarter than that. My trees run alongside the driveway so they dump husks all over the driveway and I just run over them with my bagging mower and then put in the compost bin or dump them out for the chickens to peck through.

Mike Barkley

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posted 8 months ago

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When I had about a dozen chestnut trees I buried most of the husks so they would decompose faster & help improve the clay soil. Some were fed to Humphrey the Hugelhump.

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Holly Windsong Greenwood

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posted 8 months ago

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Yes, the chestnut husks are toxic, thus bitter-tasting and astringent on the tongue.

I LOVE the ideas about using them as critter barriers. If you pile them in windrows, over time, they will make an excellent base for a hugel.

Also like the idea of allowing them to rot inside heavy-duty black plastic bags. Can't wait to try out the resulting mulch/compost.

Rick Valley

Posts: 191

posted 5 months ago

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Chestnuts, IMHO, coevolved with Squirrels and Hawks: the sequence goes something like Chestnut makes nuts, squirrels harvest and cache nuts, hawk eats squirrel, cached chestnut grows in a spot not too far from the tree. But there's actually a longer sequence: Chestnut makes nuts, hogs eat fallen nuts, and then both pigs and squirrels "sow" spores: spores grow, mycelium which collaborates with the chestnut roots, to aid in the tree's "Nut"rition(sic) -only the chain is yet more of a web) and you can elaborate that at your own pace as you gather chestnuts and collaborate* (*directly from the Latin: "to work with"

Rick Valley at Julie's Farm

Rick Valley

Posts: 191

posted 5 months ago

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I have always picked chestnuts with gloves on and later trod the burs with my work boots on. I did find that some trees and some years had better free-fall rates, if you dig me. And a very few trees were superlative at hull-free drop. And I remember fondly climbing up in a street tree, to shake the branches only to hear giggles and lok down to see an Asian American family happily picking up the nuts and smiling at me. But when I got down they had split??? WTF?

Rick Valley at Julie's Farm

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