Hello, dear gardeners, vegetable growers and florists! My dears, today I would like to tell you, to introduce many of you to such a plant as a nut.
There are only about 20 species of nuts. And only 4 of them grow in Russia. But Russia is big – it can withstand these trees. The trees are huge, beautiful, they can grow to a height of about 20 to 30 meters. They can grow for 200-300 years. The trunk can reach a diameter of about a meter, or even about one and a half meters.
These are such huge, powerful trees. As a rule, a very beautiful crown. Many of them have a raised, lacy crown, so the trunk is unusually even, smooth, beautiful, covered with such bark, look. The bark becomes corky, and this cork layer grows, such beauty. Can you imagine? This layer is completely weightless. And really like a real cork.
Trees take up a lot of space, though. And yet our topic today concerns those whose plots are no smaller than 12 acres, because the crown can take up about 4 acres. So imagine, right? Almost under the crown, well, nothing. Only if you put some flowerpots, you won’t be able to grow anything else. But the trees themselves are simply irreplaceable for large plots.
Among these nuts is a walnut, which you know very well, yes? Walnuts. For comparison, I just brought them.
There is a Manchurian nut – here it is, see? Large, very sharp, prickly.
Here’s a nut in its skin, hanging on a branch like this. You see it, right? It’s long. That’s what it’s like. I’ll put on my gloves now to show you.
If you suddenly look for these nuts somewhere and find them, then carefully take them in your hands, very carefully. Why? Because there is a lot of iodine in this shell. Therefore, be sure, for example, to find such a nut – they can be found in any city park, in some public garden, in a city forest. So you found this nut.
This is how you open it, you see, right? This way. You separate it, you wash it. You wash it well. You dry this nut. Here it is. Carefully, very carefully, because you can go a week without washing your fingers with anything.
So, you have received a nut. You can dry it for some period. Well, say, a week, two, three. You can store it for one and a half to two months in normal room conditions. And then plant it. But do not wait for the shoots to appear right away, the shoots will not appear right away. You need to stratify this nut.
As usual, we take an inert environment, sand, sphagnum moss, you can even take regular, slightly moistened peat, preferably coarse-fibered.
You can take vermiculite, perlite. I like sand, for example, river sand, you pour it in this way. You lay it down further. And so, layer by layer, you pour sand, which, in fact, is an intermediate material.
When you have already filled the top nuts with this inert substrate, then after that we place our container – it can be any – in a bag, a plastic bag. We tie this bag. And set it for stratification. Stratification lasts about two, maximum three months, at the end of which you will see a small tail that has already hatched.
Plant the seeds. Even if they sprout prematurely for you – you won’t be going to the dacha anytime soon – you can plant one nut in a similar pot in a good, fatty substrate. You do the same with the black walnut.
I already said that there is walnut, Manchurian walnut, black walnut. You see, right? What beautiful nuts. You stratified them, they sprouted.
Take it to the dacha when the threat of frost has passed. After that, you plant it in a permanent place, having properly prepared the soil.
The soil should be nutritious, moderately heavy, in general. And only then will the nuts grow well. The first 2-3 years grow slowly, the growth is small. The first year is 15-20 cm, the second is 30-40 cm. Already by the third year it can give growth and the plant can become about a meter high.
And look at these leaves. I completely forgot to say: huge leaves, the leaves of these trees can be more than a meter. This is what I collected right now. But the largest ones have long since flown off, they have already been removed.
Trees, of course, love the sun. They love light, air, watering – be sure to do this after the third year, be sure to also feed them so that the tree grows actively. And I want to say that by the age of ten, this tree will already be 4 meters, 5 meters high.
Therefore, in order to prevent too much growth, very strong growth, then please form the crown properly, reduce the height of the leading branches and you will get very neat trees. Due to pruning, shaping, you can restrain, in general, the growth of the tree itself.
A tree similar in beauty is the Amur cork tree. It is not a nut, it has such complex inflorescences, and then fruitlets. You simply collect them among the foliage, just like these nuts, you can find them now. Just on the foliage, under the fallen foliage, both those and other crops.
You simply crush these nuts. You crush them like this and the seeds appear. Here they are, these seeds. You collect them.
Seeds do not like drying out, so it is best to place these nuts, these seeds, in a slightly damp substrate. After that, as soon as the very first ones hatch – also 2-3 months will pass – you sow them. Dear friends, who have large plots, you definitely need to plant such trees on your plot that you will enjoy for many, many years.
Nikolay Fursov. Candidate of Agricultural Sciences
