Nuts Around My Farm
Here in the Northeast, autumn is a wonderful time to enjoy the changing foliage, but it's also a good opportunity to appreciate the many nuts that grow on the trees and fall this time of year.
Tree nuts grow on trees. These include almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts. There are also acorns, or oak nuts, which are the nuts of oaks and their close relatives. The great ginkgo tree also drops nuts - housed inside those soft, fleshy, strong-smelling yellow-brown fruits. Many birds and small animals rely on nuts, even deer and black bears feed on them. Nuts provide protein, carbohydrates, fats, and other crucial nutrients that help wildlife thrive especially when other natural food sources are nonexistent.
Here's a look at some of the different nuts that can be found right here at my Cantitoe Corners Farm, enjoy.
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- As a general rule, many nuts mature in late summer and start falling in September as the foliage begins to turn. We’ve been seeing a lot of nuts around the farm, so we gathered what we could and created this glossary. This grouping includes: almonds, black walnuts, hickory nuts, pin oak acorns, bur oak nuts, filberts or hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and a ginkgo nut.
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- Just outside my stable, at the foot of my linden tree allée are two Aesculus pavia shrubs, red buckeyes.
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- In autumn, the leaves turn from bold green to bright yellow.
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- And its orange nuts are encased in husks that split open to reveal the “buckeyes.”. Squirrels and chipmunks feast on these protein rich nuts, so they don’t last long.
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- I also have large mature horse chestnut trees in front of the stable and along the carriage road azalea border. These trees burst with reddish-pink clusters in late spring.
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- And then drop spiny-shelled fruits containing the seeds, technically known as conkers. Here, they are on each side of the acorns – big and very glossy.
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- The acorns dropped from these pin oak trees. This allée is located next to my Equipment Barn just past my flower cutting garden.
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- Composed of a bowl-like structure known as a cupule and a cap sitting atop, acorns almost always contain one seed each – in very rare cases, two. Acorns have tannins, which taste bitter and are toxic if eaten in large quantities.
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- This is the leaf of a bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa. They are alternate, simple, six to 12 inches long, roughly obovate in shape, with many lobes. The two middle sinuses nearly reach the midrib dividing leaf nearly in half. The lobes near the tip resemble a crown.
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- The bur oak also has acorns that form along the branches encased in shells and then fall to the ground.
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- Around my farm, I also have several black walnut trees, Juglan nigra, native to North America and related to hickory nuts and butternuts. They have thicker, harder shells than the English walnuts traditionally found in stores, but they also have a richer, bolder, earthier flavor.
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- During dormancy, the black walnut can be identified by looking at the nuts that have fallen around the tree. Black walnuts have a yellow-green husk that turns dark brown as it ages.
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- Here is a closer look. The husked nuts are about two inches in diameter. The nut inside is also more round, while the nuts on its butternut tree cousin are more egg-shaped and smaller.
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- Inside are the walnuts in their hard shells – the hardest shells of all the tree nuts.
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- Because the black walnut shell is tougher than other nutshells, the nutmeat may be a bit challenging to remove, but here is nut inside.
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- Hickory is a common name for trees in the genus Carya, which includes about 18 species of deciduous nut-producing trees of the walnut family.
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- Hickory fruits consist of hard-shelled nuts, surrounded by a woody husk. The husk varies among species as to how easily it splits. The nuts are edible, although they vary in size and taste.
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- I have two almond trees here at the farm – both on one side of my main greenhouse. They thrive in mild, wet winters, and hot, dry summers in full sun. I am very fortunate these trees are doing so well in this area.
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- The leaves of the almond tree are long – about three to five inches. The almond fruit is leathery, and usually referred to as the hull or husk of the seed. It measures about two inches long, and is called a drupe. The outer covering, or exocarp, is a thick, grayish green coat, with a downy feel to it. This fruit is not edible.
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- Many almonds fall from the trees on their own. Some of the drupes will open on their own also, exposing the shells, but most will have to be opened manually. Here is nut casing that is removed from the drupe and the hard shell.
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- Shelling almonds refers to removing the hull to reveal the seed, so the almond that is eaten is inside this seed. Once all the almond seeds are removed from the fruits, they’re spread out and left to dry. These must be dried to reduce the moisture in the kernels.
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- Outside my run-in paddock, I have a grove of filbert trees, or hazelnuts. The American hazelnut, also known as the American filbert, is a native shrub of the eastern United States.
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- Hazelnuts develop from the female flowers and come in clusters of up to five nuts. They usually ripen in early to mid-August. Squirrels absolutely love them – it was pure luck to find this cluster still intact.
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- Behind my sunken Summer House garden is this giant female ginkgo, the focal point of this formal space. It’s probably more than 250-years old. Although not as large as others I’ve seen during trips to Asia, my tree is quite massive – its trunk circumference measures at least 14-feet. Ginkgo trees have beautiful green leaves that turn a luminous gold-yellow in fall.
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- Every October the fruits start to fall. They can be found all along the footpath. The most noticeable thing about these is their smell – it is hard to miss, and the stench is quite disagreeable. The outer, nasty smelling pulp is known botanically as sarcotesta.
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- Here is a closer look at a ginkgo fruit on top of my sundial.
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- Inside is a single hard-shelled seed enclosing an edible kernel. The kernels are often roasted and used in Asian cuisines.
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- And here are smaller two ginkgo trees – standing out so beautifully outside my stable. Right now, they are bright, bright golden-yellow. These are male specimens that don’t drop any fruit or nuts. I hope you are able to appreciate some of the tree and shrub nuts, acorns and fruit where you live. They are all… good things.
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