The Backyard Homestead

by Carleen Madigan

  Peach, Apricot, or Nectarine Vinegar: Follow the procedure for raspberry vinegar, but use white wine vinegar as the base. Peel apricots, peaches, or nectarines before using by dipping them briefly into boiling water, then removing the skin with your fingers. If the fruits are big, cut them into chunks.

  Using Fruit Vinegar

  Can you imagine peach vinegar sprinkled on a fruit salad, raspberry vinegar mixed with mayonnaise and used in a chicken salad, and perfect leaves of butterhead lettuce sprinkled with a few edible flowers and dressed in blueberry vinaigrette? Fruit vinegars add a special touch to light marinades and dressings; blend them with mild oils so that their delicate flavors won’t be overwhelmed.

  Go Nuts

  Nearly every region in America once had an abundance of wild nut trees, and it used to be an annual event for country folks to take burlap bags into the woods on a crisp, fall day and race the squirrels to the tasty treats hidden among the newly fallen leaves.

  Back home they’d dump their treasures on the attic floor to dry for winter cracking. Unfortunately, blights, weather, and heavy cutting of the nut trees for their valuable lumber have taken their toll. Nutting, as it was called, is mostly a thing of the past.

  People still love nuts, though, and gardeners are planting nut trees in increasing numbers in their backyards. Because they grow so large, though, it’s important to plan carefully when planting on a small suburban lot. They are logical companions to fruits, but unlike fruits, you can easily store them for months or even years without processing.

  Nuts are an excellent source of protein and other nutrients. Recently developed cultivars are hardier, bear younger, and, best of all, produce nuts that are larger, tastier, and crack more easily than their wild ancestors. If you like nuts and have the right climate and enough space, consider planting a nut tree or two.

  Improved Cultivars

  Nut breeding has progressed less rapidly than fruit and berry development, both because there has not been as much interest in improving them and because they take such a long time to bear. The most progress has been made with almonds, filberts, pecans, Persian walnuts, and other nuts grown commercially. Recently, however, some excellent cultivars of butternuts, black walnuts, chestnuts, and hickories have been developed. Still, many of the nut trees being sold are simply seedlings from ordinary wild trees.

  Nuts are logical companions to fruits, but unlike fruits, you can easily store them for months or even years without processing.

  Your Tree in a Nutshell

  If you like the idea of raising wild nuts and are not in a hurry, you might as well grow your own. It’s easy — just imitate the squirrels. Practically all the great nut forests in this country were planted by these active little creatures as they stashed away huge numbers of nuts and then forgot where they hid them. Like the squirrels, all you need to do is dig a small hole and bury a nut an inch or so deep. Either plant it where you want the tree to grow permanently or plant a bed of seeds and transplant them after they have grown for two or three years.

  Fall is the time that the squirrels do their planting, and it’s the best time for us, too. Most nuts sprout well only if they have been frozen for a few days first, so if you forget to plant them in the fall, you can do it in the spring after freezing each nut for a week inside a teacup of water in the freezer. They may not sprout quite as fast as if the shells had softened in the ground during the winter, however.

  Whenever you plant, protect the nuts with a wire screen or a scattering of mothballs, particularly if you have squirrels or chipmunks around. They may forget where they’ve hidden their own nuts, but they’ll have no trouble finding yours and hauling them away.

  Don’t worry if your new little tree doesn’t appear the same week the dandelions bloom, or even with the first sprouts of corn. It may be midsummer before it finally bursts through the soil. As soon as it does pop up, it will grow rapidly however, and may be 2 or 3 feet tall within six or eight weeks. The nut itself carries enough nutrients to get the tree off to a good start, so don’t feed it anything or it may keep growing too late in the season and be winter-killed.

  If you transplant nut trees, don’t wait until they get large. Most grow tremendous taproots that head speedily toward the center of the earth, so don’t attempt to move them after they get much more than 3 or 4 feet tall. If you should break or bend the taproot in the process of transplanting, the tree is likely to die. The best time to transplant is in early spring.

  Planting and Culture

  Since some of the new cultivars are as superior to wild nuts as named apples are to wild, sour ones, if the cultivars will grow in your climate, consider planting them rather than seedling trees. Planting a nut tree is much the same as planting a fruit tree. When you are choosing a location, however, keep in mind the eventual size of the tree. Filberts remain nicely within fruit tree dimensions, but most other species become 50 or more feet tall and nearly as wide. Give them enough room, and don’t plant them beneath overhead wires or too close to your house. The falling nuts can become a nuisance, too, so plant away from streets, sidewalks, roofs, and any lawns that will be mowed in late fall. Nuts are hard on mowers.

  Nut trees grow best in well-drained, deep soil. After the first year they benefit from annual spring applications of a fertilizer that is rich in nitrogen. To imitate the conditions of the lush forest floor, apply a thick, organic mulch when the trees are still young. Grafted cultivars take much less time to produce their first crop than do seedling trees, which may require eight years or more to bear their first few nuts.

  Plant in Pairs

  Although a single black walnut or butternut tree can produce nuts, the general consensus among horticulturists is that they benefit from having a companion. Most other nut trees definitely need a partner, and to be compatible, the partner must be of the same species. The two should be within 100 feet of each other, because nearly all nuts are pollinated by wind instead of bees.

  If you are planting all cultivars rather than seedlings, plant two different cultivars or a few seedling trees of the same species to pollinate them. In other words, if you plant a Royal Filbert, plant another filbert hybrid, such as Graham or Skinner, or some wild filberts to pollinate it. Two Royal Filberts would not pollinate each other because they both originated from the same tree. Each seedling tree is different, however, so they will pollinate any other seedling or hybrid of the same species.

  Because even a hybrid nut tree still closely resembles its wild relatives, it needs no special care. For a strong tree, prune it to have one central trunk with no branches for the first 8 feet. Diseases and insects seldom infest backyard nut trees. This is fortunate, because spraying such large trees is not easy.

  Harvesting

  When the nuts begin to fall off the tree, they are mature and ready to pick. Squirrels don’t always wait for them to fall, though, so it is best to begin collecting as soon as the squirrels do. If you are careful not to damage the limbs, you can shake most nuts from the trees. In fact, walnuts are often harvested commercially by mechanical shakers. The entire crop of most nut trees can be gathered at one time, although some, like walnuts, may need several pickings. Don’t let nuts stay on the ground for any length of time after they fall because they deteriorate rapidly.

  Nuts need to be dried thoroughly before their meats ripen enough to eat. Spread them out, one layer deep, on benches in a greenhouse or garage, on warm attic floors, or, best of all, on raised screens where the air can circulate all around them. Turn them occasionally so they will dry on all sides.

  After drying the nuts completely, store them in burlap bags, boxes, or barrels in a cool place, making sure the storage area is squirrelproof.

  It would be wrong not to mention some of the bad habits of nut trees. Some kinds are not the best trees to plant as close neighbors to other plantings. Both black walnut and butternut roots give off a toxic substance that eliminates their competition by killing certain nearby plants, especially evergreens. The
y don’t have this poisonous effect on grass and many other plants, however.

  Other Uses for Nuts

  Eating nuts is one of the most enjoyable ways to use them, of course, but they also have other uses. The shells are made into ornaments and jewelry or burned to make a fragrant smoke used for smoking meat or to make activated charcoal, a product used in filters and gas masks. Wood from nut trees is among the most prized in the world. Windmill propellers used to be made from butternut, one of the strongest lightweight woods known. Gun stocks, fine furniture, and many other products are made from black walnut. Hickory, known for its great strength, is used for skis, tool handles, and much more. Even before the chestnut blight struck North America, most of the great chestnut forests of the East had already been cut for their fine lumber.

  Nuts for the Home Garden

  Included here are only the nut trees that home gardeners usually grow. The planting zones listed indicate the areas where the trees appear to do best and are most widely grown, although they may succeed in other zones under the right conditions.

  Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra)

  Zones 4–8

  The native black walnut grows well throughout most of Zones 5 through 8, and hardier strains survive in Zones 3 and 4. Most cultivars have nuts that crack more easily and have larger and better-flavored meats than the wild kinds, but the trees are less hardy. Not everyone cares for the black walnut’s unusual flavor, but its fans use it to flavor cakes, ice cream, and other desserts.

  In addition to the different strains of seedlings that vary widely across the country, the following cultivars are among those being sold by nurseries: Bowser, Cornell, Elmer Meyers, Emma Kay, Kwik-Krop (Stark), Ohio, Patterson, Ridgeway, Snyder, Sparrow, Stabler, Stambaugh, Thomas Black, Thomas Meyers, Vendersloot, Victoria, and Weschke. Patterson and Weschke are among the most hardy.

  Butternut (Juglans cinerea)

  Zones 3–7

  Like dried corn, beans, and smoked meat, butternuts were one of the staple foods that helped the Iroquois Indians live well through the hard northern winters. The early settlers soon learned to store and use them too, and they have been a winter treat in the Northeast ever since.

  The butternut is one of the hardiest nut trees, and its oily meat is one of the most flavorful nuts. New hybrids and selections of native trees produce nuts that are larger and easier to crack than the wild ones. Even the wild ones crack easily if you pour boiling water over them, let them stand for 15 minutes, and then drain. With one easy hammer blow you can then pop apart the halves intact.

  Black walnut

  Butternut

  Chestnut

  Butternut blooms are easily damaged in late-spring frosts, and even if they are not harmed, the trees are likely to bear abundantly one year and then take a few years off. Luckily for butternut lovers, the nuts store well.

  Some improved varieties are now being sold: Ayers, Bountiful (Stark), Chamberlin, Chambers, Corner, Craxezy, Creighton, George Elmer, Ken-worthy, Mitchell, Van Syckle, and Weschke. Ayers has very large nuts; Mitchell begins to bear at an early age; Chamberlin and George Elmer are among the most hardy.

  The buartnut tree (Juglans × bixbyi), a cross between the Japanese heartnut and the butternut, combines the hardiness and good flavor of the latter with the easy cracking, high yields, and disease resistance of the former. Several hybrids are now on the market. Among them are Coble’s No. 1, Corsan, Dunoka, Fioka, Hopkins, and Wallick.

  The Chestnut Family (Castanea)

  Zones 5–9

  The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) was an important part of North American colonial life. Its lumber was greatly prized for paneling and for export to Europe. During cold winter nights, the nuts popped in many a colonial fireplace, and holidays were never complete without chestnut dressing for the turkey or goose. In New England there is still a belief that a blacksmith shop should stand “under a spreading chestnut tree.”

  When the blight of the early 1900s wiped out nearly every chestnut tree, a search began for blight-resistant varieties. Trees were introduced from China, Japan, Manchuria, and Spain, and some were successfully crossed with the few remaining American species. Many of the resulting new hybrids are now producing quality nuts in American backyards.

  The Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima) is frequently sold in nurseries and garden centers. It is less hardy than most peaches, however, and the grafted cultivars appear to be even less hardy than the seedling trees. As with the peach tree, you must fertilize them carefully when the trees are young or they will grow too rapidly and get winter injury.

  Many chestnut cultivars available today are improved Oriental species. Others are hybrids of the Oriental and American species. Among them are Crane, Douglass, Dunstan, Eaton, Heritage, Layeroka, Meader, Meiling, Myoka, Nanking, Revival, Skookum, and Willamette.

  Filbert and Hazelnut (Corylus)

  Zones 5–9

  The round filbert (Corylus avellana) is familiar to everyone who has ever bought a bag of mixed nuts for the holidays. It is a native of southern Europe, originating probably in Italy. Most of North America’s commercial filbert production is in the Pacific Northwest, with Barcelona, Daviana, and Duchilly the leading cultivars. They seldom do well in the rest of the continent, however.

  Hazelnut

  An American cousin of the filbert, the hazelnut (Corylus americana) grows wild in hedgerows all over the northern United States and southern Canada. The small nuts are favorites of chipmunks and squirrels.

  Filbert trees have the advantage of maturing to a size that fits well into most home landscapes. The trees grow from 10 to 15 feet tall, or about the size of semi-dwarf apples. Plant them about 20 feet apart. Unlike most other nut trees, they don’t have a long taproot, so they are easy to transplant. Soils suitable for fruit trees usually suit the filbert, too, but fertilize it only lightly so it doesn’t grow too fast.

  Filbert trees root easily from layers and root suckers, so even cultivars are seldom grafted. If you buy a tree, you may want to propagate it in this way to increase your plantings. The following European filberts are worth a trial in Zones 6 to 8: Butler, Cassina, Contorted, Daviana, Duchilly, Ennis, Hall’s Giant, and Royal.

  Many catalogs list cultivars of the American filbert (hazelnut) that are hardy in Zones 4 to 7, although they have smaller nuts than their European cousins. Walter and Winkler are two improved cultivars.

  Some crosses have been made between the European filbert and the hardy wild American hazelnut. These “filazels” are hardy in Zones 5 to 8 and include Gellatly, Minnesota F2, Peace River Cross, and the Fred Ashworth Crosses, which are reputed to be among the hardiest.

  The round filbert is familiar to everyone who has ever bought a bag of mixed nuts for the holidays.

  Hickory and Pecan (Carya)

  Zones 5–9

  As the botanical name shows, hickories and pecans are closely related, even though they grow in different climatic zones. The relationship, however, has permitted some worthwhile hybrids between them to be developed.

  Of the two, hickory trees are hardy over a wider area, from Zones 5 to 8. Although they are seldom offered commercially, they are much enjoyed by those lucky enough to live in the same habitat. The shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), the best of dozens of native hickories, has the disadvantage of a very tough shell and a small meat that usually breaks in cracking. Many new cultivars, which are selections of these wild trees, are now available. These bear nuts at a younger age, and the nuts are larger and easier to crack. The hardiness of the new kinds isn’t always known for sure, however, and thus far not many are being grafted and offered for sale. Davis, Grainger, Neilson, Porter, Weschecke, and Wilcox are some that are available.

  Shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa) cultivars are slightly less hardy than shagbarks. They include Abundance, Anderson, Eureka, Henry, Kaskaskia, Missouri Mammoth, and Richmond Furnace.

  Pecans (Carya illinoinensis) need a long season to develop their nuts, so the trees
are limited mostly to the southeastern United States and Mexico. Unlike most other North American trees, the pecan has been cultivated commercially for many years.

  Pecans keep for only a few months in ordinary storage but store well for a year or more at temperatures below freezing. Some pecan cultivars currently being grown are Apache, Barton, Cape Fear, Choctaw, Major, Missouri, Nutcracker, Pawnee, Rocket 800, Schley, Sioux, Starking Hardy Giant, Stuart, and Surecrop (Stark). Paper-shell pecans include Cheyenne, Mohawk, Peruque, Schley, and Stuart.

  Pecan

  Hickory

  In an effort to combine the flavor of pecans with the hardiness of hickories, horticulturists have created hybrid “hicans.” Among them are Burlington, Burton, Gerardi, Henke, Jackson, Pleas, and Underwood. All can be grown farther north than pecans, but the different cultivars vary widely in hardiness.

  Walnut (Juglans regia)

  Zones 5–8

  Persian walnuts (Juglans regia) are often called English walnuts because they have been grown in Great Britain for centuries. They were considered far too tender for all of North America except the warm regions of the West Coast until a missionary, Reverend Paul Crath, discovered a strain growing wild in the cold mountains of Poland. He brought several thousand seeds to Ontario in the 1930s and found they grew well there.

  They succeeded so well, in fact, that within only a few years the Carpathian strain he introduced was being grown in Zones 5 and 6, and hardier strains will survive in favored parts of Zone 4.

  Walnuts are without doubt the most popular of all nuts both to eat out of the shell and to enjoy in countless appetizing desserts. Unfortunately, a few people get canker sores in their mouths from eating walnuts and have to sacrifice a real delicacy. Perhaps a variety without this unpleasant side effect will someday be developed, so all of us can enjoy this delicious nut.

  Persian walnuts suitable for Zones 7 and 8 include these cultivars: Champion, Kentucky Giant, Kwik Krop Stark, Lock-port, Serr, Spurgeon, Sunland, and Super. In California, Franquette and Hartley are widely grown commercially.