Spreading the gospel

Is there anything more tiresome than hearing a fanatic proselytize? Endless words about the salvationary capacity of their current conviction. On and on about the miraculous manifestations of the greater good. A simple-minded focus on "the one thing" that would change everything for the better.

Imagine you are the one talking.

During the last year, I have found myself in the role of the slightly nutty enthousiast, exhorting the endless benefits of growing nuts. Every morsel of potential value has been exhibited, from the health benefit of consuming a daily handful of nuts to the biodiversity improvement from growing food on trees; from nutrient runoff mitigation to the crisis preparedness perspective. (Nowadays, most people seem to be tired of hearing about the climate benefits of trees, either because they know or because they believe the opposite.)

I have been invited, often even paid, to come talk nuts to various audiences in Soutern Sweden.

There is a growing interest in nuts and nut trees and in the last monthly newsletter from the Organic Extension Services, every single item was about growing nuts. Maybe we have reached the metaphorical tipping point, when nut growing returns to the center court of food production in Scandinavia? There are just a dozen growers registered with the Board of Agriculture today, which is not much. However, five years ago there were zero nut growers, as it had been for the last fifty years or so. I have met almost all of the nut growing pioneers in Sweden, and many of them have trees from our nursery. Now that plantings are gaining speed and volume, we cannot keep up with deliveries, for many reasons, so we often refer to large-volume nurseries in Germany and Belgium. (There is no high-volume nursery here yet.)

At the same time, we learn a lot about what varieties work best in different locations and how to best establish nut trees in different soils. Based on that, we adjust the assortment in our nursery, to offer the best available varieties for the local conditions.

Every speaking engagement is of course an opportunity to meet more nut geeks to learn from, and to meet more potential customers to lure into the nut world.

The settings vary greatly, and I hear myself tell the same stories in new ways every time, from student meetups at the University of Agriculture, to farmers' days and garden festivals. A common theme is that almost everyone like nut trees, even the people who are allergic to the fruits.

Getterön Naturum, Varberg - Biodiversity festival - talking nuts and selling trees.

At an extension field day in Ljungby, I talked nuts to farmers and got a lot of insights into the local conditions. Peter told me that he had already planted a few dozen walnut trees to grow high-value timber, and enjoyed the nuts as a positive side-effect. Another lady told about her grandfather's old hazelnut grove, which she planned to rejuvenate.

This particular day, I think I listened more than I talked, but that is uncommon.

At a farm outside Ljungby, invited by Länsstyrelsen, talking to farmers.

We were invited to join a project to help municipal organizations to plant more nut trees, and organized a series of workshops with public servants. It was very enlightening to hear about the legal and organizational realities of the different town administrations. There are lots of competing interests and many different voices regarding how to use the common lands. Different organizations within a municipality has different goals and need different justifications for action/inaction.

In Lund, talking to ecologists park people from three municipalities and a diocese (church region).

One of the most fun workshops was a political subversion workshop at Alnarp Agroecology Farm. I told the story about the peasants in 1700-s France, where the King's tax collector could easily tax wheat, but not so easily tax chestnuts. The farmers who were surrounded with chestnut forests had more freedom than those without. That led the tax man to drive a cut-down mandate for all sweet chestnut trees and promote wheat. I shared the dream of having an edible backdrop around every village in the world, to wrench power out of the hands of the hierachies. I laid out a vision for an illegible landscape according to James C. Scott (e.g. "Seeing like a state", "The art of not being governed").

We also got to sample kernza beer and cookies, which is always good fun.

At the Agroecology Day, where we sampled kernza beer and cookies.

M. is also a nut-evangelist, here at the citadel park in Helsingborg:

M. spreading the nut gospel in Helsingborg.

Nuts

Chestnuts

The nuts that were sowed in April start to come out of the ground. The small trees are tender and pretty and promising. All together I think I sowed 600 chestnuts this year.

Chestnut tree starting to grow.

The chestnut trees that we grafted inside the tunnel, with the intern E., are budding out. 24 out of 28 seem to have taken, but it is still hard to tell. At least one is confirmed failure, but maybe more will lose viability later.

I started to graft outdoors as well, but on those ones, there is still nothing to see.

At Samuel's place, we trialled sowing 40+ chestnuts outside in cleared forest openings. We just dug small holes (15cm deep), placed three chestnuts in each hole, and filled up with soil. We covered the nut place with a pile of branches, almost 1 meter high, to deter roe deer and other tree eaters. It will be interesting to follow the development. I hope that mice will not eat all the chestnuts that are sprouting in the soil.

Building a pile of branches on top of three chestnuts in a pit.

Walnuts

The walnuts have started to sprout and we have sowed all of the ones we collected this year. We had four varieties this year: Lars Olesen's nuts from Denmark, Tova's nuts who were the most delicious walnuts 2025, Lövengripska/Lund walnuts and wild harvested walnuts from Samsö, Denmark.

When the walnuts start to sprout, time has come to sow.

Some of the walnuts we sowed on an air pruning bed.

May is also the best month to graft walnut trees and put them into the hotpipe callus system:

Putting walnut trees into the hotpipe.

When the trees are ready to take out of the hotpipe, the growing shoots often look strange. Since there is almost no light inside the sand, the shoots are "blanched" - almost white and very sensitive. Therefore, we pot up all fresh walnut trees after heat treatment, and put them in a protected spot outside of direct sunlight. After a week or two, they are green and strong and can be planted out in the field.

The black clips are supposed to make the new shoots grow more vertical. Let's see if it works.

Walnuts after hot-pipe. Almost all have started to grow, you can see the white branches.

Hazelnuts

This year I have increased sowing of hazelnuts from around 10 pcs, to more than 100 seeds. The seeds are selected large seeds from 'Halles Giant'.

Hazelnut sprouting.

Farm and friends

May is an amazing time at the farm. Everything springs to life. We had a cool April and a very dry May (no rain), so some things are a bit slow, but there are lots of things to prepare for the summer season.

Rhubarb harvest for jam and juice.

I have started grafting fruit trees as well for the year. A dozen plum trees and at least twenty quince trees of four different varieties. Quince trees are so beautiful when they flower, with pink, rose-like flowers, and the smell of quince fruit is amazing.

Grafted quince tree budding out.

Our cold storage room has worked very well this year. We still have apples.

The best apple varieties: Cox's orange, Belle van Boskoop and unknown "wintercrisp" apples store until end of May!

Our neighbour who is breeding race horses have got four kute additions to the flock.

Neighing neighbours?

We also went with some frineds on a trip to visit a special garden - "Jeppa S" - outside Osby. Five years ago, they built a 500m2 passive greenhouse, dug into a mound, and are able to grow bananas, mango, kaki and maybe even avocado.

Subtropical insulated greenhouse.