Giant Chestnuts

Fresh giant Chestnuts. They are so good. I wish I have a mature tree in my back yard.

Tony

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Do they peel OK? Are they locally grown? They look like Korean imports which usually taste OK but don’t peel well at all.

Here are some large Japanese chestnuts I bought in Singapore. They had very nice flavor but wouldn’t peel well at all.

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I used to grow a variety I think called Colossus- maybe something else, but it had huge nuts with a nasty thick skin that clung to the nuts. Blight finally killed it at my place but I planted one at a site I manage that still thrives. No one can be bothered trying to skin the nuts, though.

That’s Colossal, the main commercial variety on the west coast. They don’t peel very well. And they’re not very tasty either.

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Not sure what varieties but they don’t peeled well. I got them from our local Asian market.

Tony

They’re probably Korean imports. Occasionally, rarely, I find some of those Korean nuts that peel OK but normally they don’t peel well at all. There’s a guy on ebay right now selling the large nutted French Bouche de Betizac variety under the title jumbo Oregon chestnuts or something similar. BdB peel OK and have decent flavor for a large chestnut.

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Thanks, I’m sure that’s it. By not tasty I assume you mean not sweet. To me the tasty ones are sweet. They are so dry they need at least that going for them to be enjoyable to eat. I’d feed Colossal to pigs if they’d have them.

If a chestnut doesn’t need to be peeled after removing the shell it doesn’t need to be real big to be enjoyable, IMO. .

There’s more to chestnut taste than sweetness. Colossal nuts have some sweetness but the taste and texture is just off. On the other hand, American chestnuts usually taste pretty good but they aren’t very sweet. Instead they have higher fat levels than most chestnuts.

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Here are nuts from a Japanese seedling I grow and the bur that contained those nuts.

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not sure why, but spiny chestnuts and hedgehogs always make me smile. Must be their cute but formidable appearance.

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These are probably the largest chestnuts I grow, a variety called Gillet. These nuts are from a one year old graft. It’s also the most vigorous chestnut I grow. the nuts peel well and the flavor is good.

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those are beautiful @castanea
your screen name befits your craft, big time!

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I love jujubes, but I like chestnuts even more. Here’s another large nutted cultivar I grow - Bergantz, which peels well and has excellent flavor -

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i can eat chestnuts every day, wish could grow them here!

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Some might be able to tolerate the heat. The big problem would be the soil. They like acidic soil.

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impossible here, i guess. Can’t possibly pot it like i could with blueberries, lol!

They would get way too hot in a pot. I have trouble with them in pots even here. They are very vigorous so their rots fill the pot quickly and the roots fry on a hot day. I have to water every day during growing season.

and the water here has more calcium alkali than tums, ouch!

Luckily our water here is decent. It’s high in minerals generally but not really alkaline.