Is it possible to grow nuts?

[ecoprincess]

Not sure if this is the right place to post or not, but here goes...

Is it possible to grow nuts in the UK? If so, which ones are the best (and easiest) to grow? I'd love to grow my own nuts, I'm a big fan of them but they can be so expensive! I've never seen them in any of my local garden centres, so if it is possible, is there anywhere I can buy the plants from online?

[scarey55]

I would say hazel/cob nuts are the way to go. I don't know where you will get them from but if you search on this I am sure you will find something. Also, think about sweet chestnut, they may take a time before you get nuts but well worth thinking about.

[Princess Unicorn]

I believe you can grow peanuts too! I am going to have a go

[ecoprincess]

Unicorn, do you know how you go about growing peanuts at all?

[Princess Unicorn]

I'm not sure I am afraid. My mum was saying she used to grow them at school, you just get a 'monkeynut' break the peanut out of the shell and plant it. :S

Only other info I found was you could buy the ready plants at garden centers and pot them on.

[SarzWix]

Some of the mail order companies sell peanut plants, can't remember off the top of my head who's catalogue I've seen them in though... Might have been J Parker's? But yes, you can grow them here

[oldie]

My neighbour has cob nut trees which overhang my plot and as a result I've got trees growing everywhere - and I don't want them. I picked up nearly 90 cobs that have fallen off to-day. I don't know how long they take to grow but if you want some to try out PM me.

[BarleySugar]

If you want nuts in a reasonable time, then they are readily available from garden centres or some of the online suppliers. Dobies do them, and I'm sure there are others too. I bought 2 bushes 3 years ago, and picked a cupful of nuts this year. My mum's one, a self sown seedling, is about 6 years old, and still isn't producing nuts yet.

[OllieMartin]

How to grow peanuts:

You will need:
- Fresh peanuts (available from health food shops)
- Sandwich bag or small glass jar with lid
- Paper Towel
- Water
- Soil
- Plant tray (30 cm x 45 cm)

Method:
1. Carefully remove the shells from one or two peanuts, making sure to keep the red skin on the nuts insude
2. Dampen three sheets of paper towl and add these to several nuts
3. Put this mixture carefully inside the sandwich bag or jar, trying to keep parts of the nuts in view.
4. Seal the sandwich bag or screw the lid of the jar.
5. Watch for about a week, and then you should see the nuts sprouting.
6. Fill the plant tray with soil and make a hole large enough (about 3cm deep) to plant the flowering nut.
7. Keep the pot watered regularly as the peanut grows into a bush, which will be about 45 cm tall. After seven or eight weeks, it will have many yellow blossoms.
8. The blossoms will fall off and the stalks (with pods at the end where the blossoms were) droop towards th ground and then tunnel beneath the soil.
9. After another nine weeks you can dig up the plant - peanuts will have matured underground where the pods were.

The Science:
This absorbing (and quite satisfying) project demonstrates something that most people don't realise - that peanuts are not nuts at all. Nuts ae the dry seeds of plants and never grow underground. Peanuts, strictly speaking, are in another plant category called legumes and are related more to soya beans and peas.

Wholly Irresponsible Exploits - Sean Connolly

[BayViewPlot]

I have been growing nuts for a couple of years with great progress but no nuts!

If you have the time and space great but for instant success, look at your local greenery - there will be fully grown mature trees you could harvest from!

Good luck
bvp

[rdmstff]

Growing Nuts in the UK

We have cobs and walnuts we planted the walnuts (5trees)20 years ago when we moved here. They crop well, two years ago we had a furry visitor and it was a competition between it and my husband, so far this year it has not visited. The cobs are fruiting early and rather small.
I would recommend you do an internet search for a supplier, there are a number in the UK

[bazzaboy]

Not difficult to find a supplier of cob nut seedlings, Eco-P, but very difficult to protect the crop from squirrels who will take every worthwhile nut before you even think about harvesting them (and any that they leave will be inferior or empty shells, I assume they shake 'em to check contents....). Mind you I'm grateful to local squirrels for one thing, that a walnut they'd carefully buried and forgotten about germinated so now I'm the proud owner of a 2/3 year old walnut sapling..... Only a couple of decades left until I get my first walnut (meantime hurrah for supermarkets, their squirrels even shell and peel 'em for you!) b.

[solway cropper]

My wife says I've grown nuts since I started gardening

[bazzaboy]

LOL, very good, SC.... and she's right! This Forum should not only have a Philosophy thread but also a darkened room where people can go to recover from the threat of gardening blight.....

[bobleponge]

Just caught up with this thread, I wouldnt have though walnuts were out of the question in the UK. I know I'm a good few hundred miles south of you, but there are walnut trees everywhere around here.
Would also have suggested cob nuts, not sure about peanuts though, not in any great numbers anyway?? Happy to be proved wrong though.