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Hartley.
Unusual
& Old
Fashioned Fruit
Trees.
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Alan J Hartley
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Tree Project.
Walnut – Juglans Regia.
The Walnut family consists of 16 species of long-lived, hardy deciduous
trees. Most Walnuts are native to Eastern Europe, the Balkans and parts
of Asia, although they have been widely planted for centuries. This slow
growing tree will live 300 years, or more and reach up to 25 metres
eventually and produces a very expensive, fancy grained, high quality
timber, when felled, which has been used by all the best cabinet-makers
throughout the centuries. There is a faster growing native of North
America called the “Black Walnut” “Juglans Nigra” that is more commonly
grown specifically for harvesting timber. This much larger tree will
happily grow, relatively quickly, up to 50 metres.
As with several nut bearing trees the male flower parts develop as
catkins and appear in May /June. Like the Almond the fruit is not a nut
at all, but is a roundish, green fruit, with very little flesh, inside
which is the Walnut. When first picked Walnuts are green until dried
after which they attain their beige colour. In an old cookbook called
“Mrs Beeton’s ….” there is a recipe for pickling green Walnuts that
gives a different flavour to the nuts and different way of eating them.
Several types of special hybridised varieties of grafted Walnut trees
can be bought from many plant nurseries, but they are expensive and will
take many years to fruit. If you want to plant some Walnut trees for
your children, or future generations to harvest their delicious nuts, it
maybe worth considering the fact that they will germinate readily from
ripe nuts and you may like to sow a handful of nuts and grow your own
trees as a cheaper alternative to buying one.
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