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A comprehensive guide to growing, harvesting and processing nuts, written by forest gardening expert Martin Crawford.Nut trees are perennials, requiring little maintenance or soil cultivation, so it is no surprise that nuts are such a popular forest garden crop. A crucial source of protein and a delicious snack, nuts also have a number of surprising health benefits. They lower blood pressure, are full of antioxidants, and decrease the risk of heart and neurodegenerative diseases.
Filled with gorgeous illustrations of trees and nuts,
How to Grow Your Own Nuts contains old favourites like hazelnuts and walnuts alongside less common varieties such as hickories and butternuts and the exotically named chinkapin. It considers how nuts can be planted in a variety of ways: singly in a small area, in an orchard or nuttery, as silvopasture around grazing animals, in alley cropping between cereal crops or intercropping between fruit bushes.
This beautiful guide also features a handy A-Z, which details nut trees' many secondary uses from timber, oil, dyes, fodder and cosmetics to medicines and honey. Martin also discusses how the beautiful spring blossom is attractive to bees, particularly from almond and sweet chestnut trees, making them excellent for supporting pollinators.
Whether you are planning to grow nuts at home or commercially, this book is essential reading.
List of contents
Introduction
Part One Cultivating and processing nuts
Growing nut trees
Maintenance and propagation of nut trees
Harvesting and processing nuts
Part TWO Nut trees A-Z
Almond (Prunus dulcis)
Black walnut (Juglans nigra)
Bladdernuts (Staphylea spp.)
Buartnut (Juglans x bixbyi)
Butternut (Juglans cinerea)
Chinkapin/Chinquapin (Castanea pumila)
Ginkgo/Maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba)
Golden Chinkapins (Castenopsis spp.) (Chrysolepis spp.)
Hazelnut and Filbert (Corylus avellana, C. maxima)
Heartnut (Juglans ailantifolia var. cordiformis)
Hickories (Carya spp.)
Monkey puzzle (Araucaria araucana)
Oaks (Quercus spp.)
Pecan (Carya illinoensis)
Pines (Pinus spp.) Sweet Chestnut (Castanea spp.)
Trazels (Corlus spp.)
Walnut (Juglans regia)
Yellowhorn
Glossary
Appendix 1: Nutritional content of nuts
Appendix 2: Common and Latin names
Resources
Photo credits
Index
About the author
Martin Crawford has worked in organic agriculture and horticulture for more than 25 years. His experiences span from working for the Yarner Trust in North Devon, teaching small-scale organic agriculture to restoring the walled gardens of a manor house to running an organic market garden and tree nursery in South Devon.
Martin is director of the Agroforestry Research Trust, a charity that researches temperate agroforestry and all aspects of plant cropping and uses, with a focus on tree, shrub and perennial crops. He runs a commercial tree nursery specialising in unusual trees and shrubs, and has an 8-acre trial site, researching fruit and nut trees.
Summary
This is the most comprehensive guide to growing, harvesting and processing nuts. Nut trees are perennials, requiring little maintenance or soil cultivation, so it is no surprise that nuts are the ideal forest garden crop.
