Premium Chestnut Seeds For Sale
In addition to selling fresh culinary chestnuts for eating, Twin Chimneys Farm also sells seed nuts for those who wish to "grow your own". A few of the best trees in our orchard are selected as "mother trees", and their seeds are harvested for our tree seed sales. Traits such as nut flavor, high chestnut production at an early age (precociousness), tree growth (vigor) and disease resistance are determining factors in mother tree selection. As with the culinary chestnuts, the seed nuts are harvested every day, cleaned, sanitized and refrigerated to ensure freshness and viability of the nuts for as long as possible. Please keep in mind if purchasing seeds for planting that the seeds will need to be stratified first. Instructions are below.
CHESTNUT SEED STRATIFICATION
First drench a soil-less starting mixture of either sphagnum moss or potting soil and squeeze out enough water to where it is still damp/wet, but no more water is running out. Do not use a mix container fertilizer! Place in either a plastic tupperware container or gallon size zip lock bag. Punch holes in the top of your container to allow the chestnuts to breathe. Bury the chestnuts in the starter mix and store in a refrigerator kept between 33 and 38 degrees. Check once every week or two to be sure the starting mix remains moist and does not dry out. If you discover a chestnut with white fungus growing on it, throw it in the trash.
Each nut should sprout a radicle or tap root in 60 to 90 days. You may now transplant the sprouted seeds into a pot or container that allows for drainage in the bottom. Be sure to lay the seed flat with the radicle/tap root pointed downward into the soil or potting mix. Store them in a room beside a window or in a greenhouse where they cannot be exposed to freezing temperatures. Keep them indoors until the last chance of frost has passed. The young trees are now ready to be planted in either pots or the ground. Do not mix fertilizer in the hole. Cut the nut off of the tree before planting. Mice will destroy the nut and your tree, otherwise. If potting up in potting soil, sprinkle a tablespoon of osmocote, or slow release fertilizer on top of the potting mix. If planted in soil, after the trees have been established for a month, you may now top dress or scatter a tablespoon of slow release fertilizer on top of the soil, underneath the young tree. Remember do not let the trees dry out. Keep the soil damp, but not wet. Above all, do not let the root systems stand in water.
Planting of your trees
The first step is to choose a proper site and then prepare the soil for planting. Chestnuts are susceptible to root rot and therefore require well drained soils. This usually means upland sites. Hillsides are ok. Do not plant where the trees will "stand in water". Well drained sandy loam soils are best, but they will grow in red clay soils of the Piedmont as well. Sticky, gummy, "pipe clay” soils are not acceptable because they will not drain well enough. Next, perform a soil test to determine the PH of the soil. The paperwork probably will not have chestnuts as an option to test for. While chestnuts are not peach trees, they do have some of the same growing requirements, so choose peach trees. Unlike most crop species, chestnuts require acidic soils. A range of 5 to 6.5 is optimum. If your soil tests near 7 or higher, sulfur must be added to it to increase the acidity. Chestnuts will not survive long in basic soils. Choose a site that is in direct sunlight. Chestnuts will not flower where shaded. Plant at least two trees together to ensure proper pollination. Tree spacing should be around 40 feet apart where possible. These trees grow quickly and will shade each other out if grown too closely together. Dig your holes preferably with a shovel to the same depth as your pot and up to twice the diameter of the pot. Remove the tree from the pot and inspect the roots. If root bound, the sides of the root mass should be score with a knife. Prune any “circling roots” as well as the tap root if it has "cork screwed” in the bottom of the pot. Don't prune at all if these conditions do not exist and don't prune more than 1/3 of the tap root, if at all. We do not recommend putting fertilizer in the hole at planting. Some fertilizers will burn the young roots and possibly kill the tree. A tablespoon of slow release fertilizer such as osmocote can be top dressed around the tree in June after the tree is established. Put the tree in the center of the hole and fill in around it with good top soil. Press the soil firmly with your hands around the tree (don't pound it in) and water it in with one to two gallons of water. Plant while the trees are dormant, but the ground is not frozen. Tree shelters need to be put around the trees to protect from deer browse in the spring and buck rubbing in the fall. 5 to 6 foot tall welded dog wire cut in 8' long pieces to make a cage that is anchored to the ground are a good choice. Two foot plastic tree shelters may be put around the trees inside the cages to protect from rabbit and vole damage. Weed competition must be controlled. We recommend weed mats" or landscape fabric in 4 four foot squares be placed around the trees. Finally, be sure to keep your trees watered during the summer and early fall. Young chestnut tree roots need to be kept moist. Not too dry, but not standing in water either. Two inches of rain each week is a good target. If your trees are not getting that, you need to give them two gallons of water per week the first year.
Preferably, one gallon at the beginning of the week and another gallon near the end of the week.
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This may seem like a lot of work, but the more you put into your trees, the more you will get out of them. The satisfaction that you will feel when your trees open up their first burs and drop the nuts out of them for you to harvest is hard to describe!