Oh! That’s an idea! I’ve never grafted anything, but I’m up for trying it.
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I’ve been trying to do the opposite. 
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Well, I don’t have racoons. I had mice after the neighbor with the apricot trees moved out, but they seem to have left. I’m trying to attract birds, snakes, toads, whatever wants to live here as long as it eats bugs and doesn’t bite me 
.
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I do have a Fuji apple tree. They’re my favorite, and I wouldn’t mind having more. I have a friend with fruit trees, maybe I’ll see what kind of apples she has.
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walnuts from Research Station tree
Anyone have established English walnut trees? I ordered Cook’s Giant and Chandler from Burnt Ridge. Info on your years to fruit and tree spacing?
This fall I gathered nuts from a huge 40-year-old English walnut at the Mt. Vernon Research Station. The 2" soft-shell nuts were very easy to crack (almost could do it by hand!) and tasted great. But not sure of its variety.
My land has poor drainage so I plant to plant them on an 8’ x 8’ berms 25 feet apart.
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Hi. I planted 2 English walnut trees in 2017. Carpathian and Manregion, as those are cold tolerant varieties. We often get late spring frosts here in the Rogue valley…The largest tree is about 15’ tall now and had a handful of blooms last year but no nuts. Hoping for a few this year.
If you want something that produces a little faster, try hazelnuts. I got my first crop last year after only 3 years in the ground.
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If you have the space, I would suggest planting them even farther apart. 30-40 ft. Walnuts can get gigantic with time.
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Thanks. I have 6 productive hazels- surprisingly they are completely happy sitting in standing water for a week.
Have soft-shelled almonds and chestnuts on berms - no nuts yet.
Fighting the squirrels for every nut!
I planted 2 chestnuts at the same time as the walnuts. One of them died a couple of years ago and I haven’t been able to find the variety I want to replace it. So I was very surprised to get a dozen or so burrs on that tree last year. Most were blanks, but one of them had a very large sweet tasty nut. Not sure how that happened without a pollenizer…
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My seedling trees
The empty spots in the middle were donut nectarines, but those ones turned out to be bad, so I threw some apple seeds in them, I didn’t stratify, so they might not come up.
I’m excited to see how they turn out!
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I’m not sure of your location, but there are native and introduced hazels all over this region. I’m guessing you have some nearby that you don’t know about. EDIT: Just realized you said chestnuts! Not sure how I misread that. Nevermind
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The cotyledon on one of those looked like a plum fruit forming to me at first. That really through me for a loop.
One of the posters from the Home Orchard Society’s remnant message board told me that with some interspecific stonefruit crosses the roots are not viable. That was in the context of rooting cuttings where they may form roots, but they are incapable of sustaining a tree.
I may not have read it all carefully but makes me wonder if its necessary to do some time of clonal propagation to a rootstock host early on if one wants to see the outcome of the cross.
Interesting. I’ll watch and see how they grow. Could I graft a couple of them to an apricot tree? I have one in my front yard that came up last year, I don’t need another apricot tree.
Can you just plant walnuts from a store and get a tree growing? I’ve never tried, but one of the schools I work at has space for it.
John S
PDX OR
Most years here, walnuts sprout up from squirrel activity, usually at the base of evergreen shrubs.
Many of these nuts appear to be store-bought as there is no trace of husk and shell is clean.
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For anyone not keeping track, today is now the third day in a row where Seattle will likely break both the daily record high and the daily record for warmest low temperature. Might just tie the high today depending on how the next couple hours play out, though, and it’s possible the daily low could be below 52° before midnight tonight (though likely still above the record):
| date | high (previous record) | low (previous record max) |
|---|---|---|
| 1/28 | 61°F (57° in 2018) | 51°F (47° in 1967) |
| 1/29 | 61°F (60° in 1992) | 51°F (48° in 2004) |
| 1/30 | 58°F so far… (59° in 1992) | 52°F so far… (48° in 2003) |
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I haven’t really been tracking the temp this week, but it was sure warm working outside yesterday. Last night I had to open two windows in the bedroom as I found it hard to sleep it was so hot in there. Even with the heat off in the bedroom it was stifling and I was sweating and finding it impossible to sleep. Even my better half who is always complaining it’s too cold wanted the windows open. She never usually wants a window open in the bedroom in the winter, let alone two.
Really warm for sure.
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Couldn’t help myself and planted a row of peas and a bed of potatoes.
Gave them minimal protection.
I’ll be rueing this in April when we get snow!