Recent content by Benja

Hello there OHBB, whereabouts in Ohio are you located? I can send you scion, but I don't have any Blue Hill varieties. I have access to 50+ varieties (two local nurseries that let me collect scion before they prune, also from my own trees or trees at my parents). Also have Ayers and...

This is an update to confirm that these seeds were viable. At the time of my earlier post I had put one bag of seeds on a heat mat with our vegetable seed starting setup. Today I noticed that dozens of the seeds had sprouted. Some already have 4" root radicles, so they sprouted pretty quick. I'm...

Thanks Fishman. Apparently sinking is not the only test. After soaking the seeds for a few hours, I dried them off and prepared to bag them with moist pine shavings. Then I noticed that a few of the seeds were really mushy when squeezed and the corner where the radicle emerges was broken open...

How late in the winter can I harvest viable seeds from manicured yards? I'm asking because this week I passed by a persimmon tree I had marked last fall. It's standing in a yard near a small restaurant and I quickly found 100 seeds right off the parking lot. All but one passed the float test. In...

Sir Letemgrow, thank you for posting this newsletter. I always find Lucille's writings to be personable and straightforward. Is the only way to get ACCF seed chestnuts to volunteer at harvest time? Can anybody volunteer How can somebody become a Cooperating Grower?

If anybody was hoping to procure American Chestnut seeds this season, it looks like IndianaSam44 has been busy selling American Chestnut seeds on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/usr/indianasam44?_trksid=p2047675.l2559 This is the first time I've purchased from him and I placed an order this morning.

Well, I learned something new about Ozark chinquapins! Thanks for that correction. Somehow I got the notion that they were both nearly identical . . . I must have inferred that from the naming convention of Region+Chinquapin.

After recently watching the I was intrigued by the facts in the nutritional analysis video. If I hear it right, there's some debate about whether Ozark and Allegheny are different species. Is it safe to assume (or expect) that Allegheny Chinquapin have nearly the same nutritional profile?

Thanks DLH, to raise trees from seed and graft them over has been my intended approach. I haven't even seen my first wild pawpaw after more than a year of searching, but I hope to get some seeds from a friend this year. I guess that's step 1, and the next step in two years is to get scion wood.

I'm interested in adding a few more pawpaws to my home place. I have 4 seedlings from SWCD and I was looking at the pawpaws in catalogs and thinking how expensive they are. Just curious where you all have purchased (and would recommend buying) named pawpaw cultivars such as Shenandoah? Google...

I've been rolling that option around, but so far the "good enough alone" argument has won. I'm curious to see how well they perform in a least care scenario. Perhaps another year I can try to improve the results by giving more care. Meanwhile, I also have several dozen local chestnuts and...

Wayne, thanks for sharing that concern. Coons can be devastators and I've been blessed to not experience much trouble from them yet.

Not nearly all the seeds came up - probably only 15% of them. Two out of the 5 rows only have 1 or 2 seedlings. The photo below is the best row and the next best one looks nearly identical. In these two 6-foot rows I have roughly 40 chestnuts. All these direct-seeded nuts seemed to get a slow...

Late last October I direct seeded several dozen chestnuts in an unused portion of my garden. After collecting chestnuts from a variety of local trees and picking up a barrel of fresh sawdust and shavings from my father's wood shop (planer and table saw shavings), I thoroughly tilled a small...

I soaked my fresh-but-already-germinating apple seeds in water for 12 hours, dried them on a paper towel, and then placed them inside the re-moistened paper towel in a sandwich bag and dropped in the refrigerator crisper. I would have just planted them into seed trays, but I my free time is...