Ben McMurray

Planted a dozen, now it's a waiting game lol.

I'm starting a few of these I got from Sheffields seed. I was wondering if anyone had any info on them other than what I have gleaned so far: Self fertile, no cold stratification needed, supposed to be tasty... I am on the Oregon coast and the native Castanopsis chrysophlla seems like it prefers a little inland heat, so that's a bit of a concern as well. Anyone know/have experience about this tree?

I've seen them for sale at the Arcata farmers market, but that doesn't mean much. As you probably know nor cal can be pretty diverse in growing regions. I have the plant it and see if it works mentality, so you can guess what I would do. I think you have a pretty good chance if you're on the coast (the weather is pretty mild in the Arcata-Trinidad area), but once you get to the inland heat you may experience more problems. Anyway, I've transplanted a number of volunteer japaneese maples I find under established tress with little difficulty. Perhaps you could get some seed or cheap to free sprouts to try with. I see a lot of people on here worried about doing things the right way with permaculture but that seems to take some of the fun and experimentation out of it. I'd say if you can do it cheap why not try. -Just my 2 cents


On a side note apparently the big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) and Acer grandidentatum have been used for syrup, and Acer grandidentatum would be a better bet for inland locations.
here's a page on tapping big leaf maples: http://arcadianabe.blogspot.com/2013/02/bigleaf-maple-syrup.html

Awesome thanks for the input.

I was wondering if people had any experiences with chesnuts in food forests and if they had any significant issues with allelopathy. Any species work better with them than others?