Oceans of oaks

 

Last year was a mast year, with a bumper crop of acorns, and as a consequence hundreds of thousands of saplings carpet the oak stands of the forest; I mean, it's quite the sight. There are stands where it's near impossible to make footfall without risk of crushing a sapling or two. Imagine if all, or even a good majority, of these tiny oak saplings were to be able to grow to fruition. From tiny acorns, eh.

Mast

 

The forest is experiencing a bumper mast year, wherever there are oaks the floor beneath them is liberally covered in acorns, to the degree that walking has become a crunchy affair. In light of the glut, I've been surprised as to how few pigs I've seen about the forest this pannage. They're going to need more pigs if a meaningful reduction in acorn mast is to be achieved. Years ago I had a go at making acorn coffee; I learnt that earthy burnt is an acquired taste. That said, if processed properly to remove toxins and tannins (it's a lengthy affair) they'd keep you fed in a crisis, very nutritious.

Mast

 

It's an outstanding year for Beech (Fagus sylvatica) mast (mast being the fruit or nut of the tree), throughout the forest the boughs are loaded with their rough hairy cups, each containing one or two nuts. Of course, we'll have to wait until September to see if they amount to much; quality and quantity of mast production is massively variable, they say you get a good mast season every few years, which is believed to be driven, in part, by weather/climatic factors. At home for the first time our small (20 year old) container (old chimney pot) grown Beech tree has some hairy cases on it.

Bountiful Beech mast

The boughs on some of the forests beeches are weighed down with mast this year, good size too by the looks of them. Although the small triangular Beechnuts are described as bitter, I've always found them to have a good mildly nutty taste. For me the real prohibitive issue around them as a wild food is the processing required, which is fiddly and laborious. Anyway, if we don't eat them some of the forests birds and smaller mammals rely on them.  Still worth remembering as wild resource.

Curious

Noticed the first Beech Mast of the season, well, the cases of anyway, good size they are too.  Initially I thought they were curiously early, although on reflection, we are nearly in June. Still though.

Mast

The Beech mast is looking the best I've seen it in years, no, the  best I remember, actually. The boughs are weighed down with large fruits, and lots of them too, whole trees festooned with them. Notably, I observed that for the most part the Oaks in forest are nearly all void of acorns, or if the acorns are there they are very small. I wonder if there's some connection, a good year for one is a bad year for another. I know there are patterns out there, I see glimpses of them, what's really needed is to join all the dots up in the hope of creating a more complete picture. Something else noticeable is the proliferation of tiny sampling Oaks about the forest, wonderful to see, although I have to wonder how many will survive. Still. Aren't trees amazing. With the mast looking so good this season, I suppose I should be thinking about what could be done with them. I know they're edible and have been crushed to produce oil, though that sounds bloody laborious, they're only small and a bugger to process...or, it could be I just don't know the right method. I may to look into that. Or, a pesto type thing maybe?