Sunday, 8 September 2024

The Christmas nut.

 
Why is Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) the Christmas nut? You always see them roasting in snowy scenes in Christmas films and seasonal adverts, they've become synonymous with the festival in the public's eyes. Although in my experience they ripen and fall long before Christmas, and I've found them difficult to store (of course that could be me). Anyhoos, a good number of the forests' sweet chestnut trees are well laden with small fruits. Last year I predicted a poor harvest at this point of the cycle, the fruits were small then too, and I was wrong, at worst the harvest was patchy. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that speculation on such matters is futile anyway, too many known and unknown variables, our natural plant lore is becoming redundant in our changing world.

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