Description
Book SynopsisA comprehensive guide to growing, harvesting and processing nuts, written by forest gardening expert Martin Crawford.Nut trees are perennials, requiring little maintenance or soil cultivation, so it is no surprise that nuts are such a popular forest garden crop. A crucial source of protein and a delicious snack, nuts also have a number of surprising health benefits. They lower blood pressure, are full of antioxidants, and decrease the risk of heart and neurodegenerative diseases. Filled with gorgeous illustrations of trees and nuts,
How to Grow Your Own Nuts contains old favourites like hazelnuts and walnuts alongside less common varieties such as hickories and butternuts and the exotically named chinkapin. It considers how nuts can be planted in a variety of ways: singly in a small area, in an orchard or nuttery, as silvopasture around grazing animals, in alley cropping between cereal crops or intercropping between fruit bushes. This beautiful guide also features a hand
Trade ReviewAll who have room for a tree should grow nuts – serious nutrition with huge gastronomic potential. In yet another beautiful book, one of our most accomplished forest gardeners shows how. * Colin Tudge, biologist, science writer, broadcaster and founder of The Campaign for Real Farming *
How to Grow Your Own Nuts is the best guide I've seen to home and small-farm nut growing for the temperate climates, featuring species selection, cultivating, harvest, and processing. It includes many lesser-known species alongside standards like walnut, chestnut, and hazel. This is an essential guide to production of these perennial staple crops. * Eric Toensmeier, permaculturist, author and Yale University lecturer *
Martin Crawford is a one-man wonder! In this grand and beautiful book on nut culture he has assembled decades of practical insight to help gardeners and orchardists grow ‘bread from trees.’ From planting to harvesting, selection to storage, and pruning to pest control, you’ll find the answers here. Complete with a thorough and lovingly illustrated guide to 19 species of nuts for the temperate world, this book sets a new standard for a vital but little-known field. If we must transform our agriculture to build soil and store carbon, then nut trees belong in all our futures. * Peter Bane, author of The Permaculture Handbook *
A beautifully presented, clear, comprehensive bible from the man who knows more than anyone about growing nuts. Full of inspiration and information. It’s a great book. * Mark Diacono, gardener, food writer and broadcaster *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One Cultivating and processing nuts Growing nut trees Maintenance and propagation of nut trees Harvesting and processing nuts
Part TWO Nut trees A–Z Almond (Prunus dulcis) Black walnut (Juglans nigra) Bladdernuts (Staphylea spp.) Buartnut (Juglans x bixbyi) Butternut (Juglans cinerea) Chinkapin/Chinquapin (Castanea pumila) Ginkgo/Maidenhair tree (Ginkgo biloba) Golden Chinkapins (Castenopsis spp.) (Chrysolepis spp.) Hazelnut and Filbert (Corylus avellana, C. maxima) Heartnut (Juglans ailantifolia var. cordiformis) Hickories (Carya spp.) Monkey puzzle (Araucaria araucana) Oaks (Quercus spp.) Pecan (Carya illinoensis) Pines (Pinus spp.) Sweet Chestnut (Castanea spp.) Trazels (Corlus spp.) Walnut (Juglans regia) Yellowhorn Glossary Appendix 1: Nutritional content of nuts Appendix 2: Common and Latin names Resources Photo credits Index
