Planting Chestnut Trees - Chinese Superior
Today, our Chinese Chestnuts arrived in the mail from Gurney's. We ordered the 1-1.5 feet trees which made planting a little easier (smaller root ball so smaller hole!) and more cost effective for our little homestead! They recommend 2 trees for the best pollination so we ordered 4 since I was planting two in two different spots in the pasture.
These trees appealed to us for both a food source for us and our animals plus the shade in years to come for our animals. One thing I've learned about gardening/homesteading if you think short term you will be disappointed plus you will be doing things over several times. These trees were planted 50 feet apart in two different paddocks that currently do not have trees. I could plant a tree that would grow faster to offer shade but the food benefit would be missing.
What new trees will you be planting on your place this year? This is a great time of the year to get some trees in the ground, happy planting to all my Steemit friends!
Shalom, my brother nice to see someone else with the same beliefs on Steemit!
I am a fan of the smaller trees for the same reasons. Way more cost effective and I am not a fan of digging giant holes.
I wanted to order walnut trees from them. There was literally one nut tree recommended for our zone, and wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t available for our state! Why?! So I ordered those short 6’ Apple trees they had and an indoor lemon tree and I think an indoor pomegranate tree? I can’t even remember now. I guess it’ll be a surprise! They said they shipped but we still have snow on the ground. Any tips on how to store them until we can plant them?
I would store them in a room just above freezing and make sure you keep the roots moist (spray them 1-2 times a week with a squirt bottle). I would get them in the ground once the ground is soft enough to dig! I will be interested in how you lemon tree does?
i followed you @a-0-0
I heard the Chinese variety is very adaptive to disease and pest.
Awesome news, a friend told me these were improved over the American variety. Thanks for the extra info boosting our confidence!
Trees add so much to a homestead! We don't have a lot of space but have managed to add a peach, plum, pear and apple to our front yard. so far we've only enjoyed peaches but hopefully will get a few plums this year too. Maybe apples next year..... 😄
I agree they do add a lot to the homestead or any yard. In years past almost all family would have had some sort of fruit tree in their yards. I am glad you are finding ways to add to your homestead!
Nice! I have some dwarf banana, fig and dragon fruit trees on order from Baker Creek. Still to cold to ship to me I guess as they have not arrived yet!
We ordered some Chicago Hardy figs from Baker Creek this year. They came last week so you must be a week or two out! I would love to hear how you do with the dragon fruit tree this year.
I will try to document the journey of the dwarf plants!
We have two peach trees, two cherry trees and an apple in our small yard. I think I've identified a place to fit three or four more, but am currently working on learning to properly raise and get fruit from the ones we have. It's so much easier to get flowers than fruit since everything in the world wants the fruit!!!
If I were to aim for more trees, I'd probably look to get another apple tree and maybe a pear - nuts would probably create a huge nuisance and it would be even harder to defend against the squirrels than our fruit trees are.
In the meantime, this will be the first year we can eat the fruit from all our trees and I've just given them their first real spring pruning since they had enough growth to need a serious rearrangement.
Our new addition this year was actually blueberries instead of trees. Looking forward to getting those going!
Sounds great, blueberries are great!!