Leo knew lots about preparing and eating chestnuts but very little about growing them. By contrast our library man had planted, grafted and harvested chestnuts as a young man in Italy. His main advice was get good grafted stock at the outset. Individual nuts bought at the supermarket when planted may grow into strong trees, but they will likely produce a very small crop and that may be impossible to peel. You will have lost several years just to save a few dollars.
I trawled the web for suppliers of grafted stock. I went to garden centres to be horrified at the price of stock. Then, at a Fire Brigade meeting in Creewah, Tom, who had recently done some contract Chestnut planting, suggested I should try Ian Widdowson in Cooma. He’s cheap and reliable.
Ian was an interesting character hailing from New Zealand who had a garden centre that was a potting shed in his own garden. But he was a wealth of advice and knew everybody that had anything to do with anything. He told me to prepare my holes a few months in advance of planting and replace the mixed soil to settle. Holes should be half a metre deep by wide incorporating a few handfuls of peat moss (she was horrified), dynamic lifter, gypsum and a potash and phosphorus source in the lower layers. He would order in the 2-year old grafted stock from Victoria, 25 of a short season variety and 25 of a mid season line. Next year I would get 50 more after seeing how the first batch went. They would be $17 to $18 each.
Marking out and digging the holes was easy in the light sandy soil especially as it kept raining. Gordon told me that the year’s rainfall was normal because normal was a generous 40 inches. He had lived there for close on 20 years. I was surprised as work colleagues had suggested that my place was in the Bombala rain shadow.
When the trees arrived I planted the lot in a day in the prepared soil holes, watered them in well, and protected each one inside a UV-stable clear plastic sock about half a metre high by 40 cm diameter called “Grotube”. That was supposed to keep the inside warm and humid and prevent rabbits and wombats from chewing the saplings. Three tomato stakes home-made from silver wattle (Acacia dealbata) collected in the local bush kept each sock vertical and rigid. Now I could sit back for a few years and wait for the profits to start rolling in. The business plan was right on schedule.
I trawled the web for suppliers of grafted stock. I went to garden centres to be horrified at the price of stock. Then, at a Fire Brigade meeting in Creewah, Tom, who had recently done some contract Chestnut planting, suggested I should try Ian Widdowson in Cooma. He’s cheap and reliable.
Ian was an interesting character hailing from New Zealand who had a garden centre that was a potting shed in his own garden. But he was a wealth of advice and knew everybody that had anything to do with anything. He told me to prepare my holes a few months in advance of planting and replace the mixed soil to settle. Holes should be half a metre deep by wide incorporating a few handfuls of peat moss (she was horrified), dynamic lifter, gypsum and a potash and phosphorus source in the lower layers. He would order in the 2-year old grafted stock from Victoria, 25 of a short season variety and 25 of a mid season line. Next year I would get 50 more after seeing how the first batch went. They would be $17 to $18 each.
Marking out and digging the holes was easy in the light sandy soil especially as it kept raining. Gordon told me that the year’s rainfall was normal because normal was a generous 40 inches. He had lived there for close on 20 years. I was surprised as work colleagues had suggested that my place was in the Bombala rain shadow.
When the trees arrived I planted the lot in a day in the prepared soil holes, watered them in well, and protected each one inside a UV-stable clear plastic sock about half a metre high by 40 cm diameter called “Grotube”. That was supposed to keep the inside warm and humid and prevent rabbits and wombats from chewing the saplings. Three tomato stakes home-made from silver wattle (Acacia dealbata) collected in the local bush kept each sock vertical and rigid. Now I could sit back for a few years and wait for the profits to start rolling in. The business plan was right on schedule.
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