October - Nut harvest season

In October the walnuts and the chestnuts are ripe here in Southern Sweden. This summer, we have been biking around the villages in around here and talking to people with nut trees in their gardens to ask if we could come and harvest later. Everyone we talked to was happy to share their bounty.

We also made more apple sauce...

Apple sauce of an old variety called Husmodersäpple - house wife apple. Light color flesh of the apple and a wonderful fragrance.

End of the walnut season

We collected more nuts in Båstad at our new-found friend's place. We shared to the owners, and got quite a lot for ourselves. Half for seeding, half for drying and eating.

M rolling kilos and kilos of nuts.

We collected more than ten kilos every time we went there.

And in the nursery, the walnut trees have had a great second half of the summer, with lots of rain and a few warm weeks.

Our own walnut trees are ready for transplant and sale soon, in November our shop opens

Acorns as food

Ola Shubert and Jouke Bruinsma are probably the premier acorn eaters in Sweden. Ola had a workshop at Holma in mid-October where he and Jouke shared their best methods of leaching tannins out of acorns. They also generously shared acorn bread and we cooked delicious dishes all afternoon and evening.

Ola Shubert shares how to harvest and process acorns

Under a magnificent oak tree, Ola showed how to select the best ones. Tens of kilos of fresh acorns

Our chestnut peeling machine also works great for acorns!

Thirty seconds for 0.5 kg acorns, they all come out neat.

Chestnut adventures

Twenty kilometers from us, there is an old restaurant with three old chesnut trees in front. The current chef is not interested in the harvest and we could collect what we wanted. An hour picking and rolling, and we left with 13 kg fresh chestnuts. Half for eating, half for seeding.

One of the chestnut trees where we gleaned.

At the beginning of the fall, the water voles are again starting to eat tree roots. During the summer they have been happy eating other things, like one of our pumpkins, but now they are both numerous and hungry.

We have still not bought a rat eating dog, and our cat is too old to make a difference. So, now that we start to notice trees with damages, we have started to dig out all the chestnut trees.

Chestnut tree with no more roots. Voles...

Most of the trees still have good roots.

I am amazed with the beautiful roots of some of these trees that we seeded in April, just six months ago.

And in the hoop house - in the heat and protected conditions, they grow even higher. 10% of the trees are taller than me! (185cm/6ft)

Nut friends on visit

The most knowledgeable nut experts in Sweden are good friends of ours, and they came to visit us at our nursery and to the local hot spots of nuts.

Philipp, Marc, Martin at Marcs amazing nut garden.

We got a pawpaw from our friend, the tree nurseryman Peter. The pawpaw tastes great, even though it is not a nut.

Erosion distress

As a reminder of why we plant trees, I took some photos of the wind erosion going just across the street from our place. It was hard to capture using my mobile phone camera, but I think you get the gist. A few more years, and the dunes will dominate.

In the distance, a cloud of dust is blowing off the field.

What is left in the field are the sand grains, when the carbon and minerals are blown away.

Some house fixing

The southern facing wall of our house had no windows. We wanted to get in more light and solar heat, so we had a local carpenter come and help us do this. We got two good triple-glass windows with extra sound insulation. At the same time we took the opportunity to improve the wooden cladding of the house and replace some old and rotten wood.

Now the wood is fresh and strong, and all painted in with red and white linseed oil. Great stuff. Some planks could be re-used and that is only visible when you come close.

Removing the old wooden boards revealed a few surprises...

For instance, we could see where there had been a window and a door in the past

We had the insulation improved as well, when the boards were down.

Final boards finishing

On a sunny day it is great in there. No additional heating needed. But on a cloudy day, it is just as cold as before...

In the coming months, we will do clay rendering for the walls, and maybe the floor of the room.