How to plant your walnut tree
As old as the world, walnut trees can be found on all the continents; it is rustic, and can become a hundred year old.
To grow up in your garden, it needs some elementary rules:
- first fruit will appear after 3 to 6 years.
- spreading space : from 60 to 120 m²
- minimal up-keeping
- high production: from 30 to 40 kg of walnuts per year
- crop failure in Europe: very good profit
The most famous walnut in France is Franquette. It’s well known characteristics make it adaptable everywhere. It’s one of the 3 traditional varieties of AOC “Noix de Grenoble”.
Planting
Plant your walnut tree in a place sheltered from violent winds. Remember a walnut tree cannot stand spring frost. Even if it has no particular need, avoid acidic or alkaline, or heavy ground.
You can plant your tree in autumn (end of November or December) as well as in spring (February - March). In order to help it start more easily, you can cut damaged roots and the tips of all roots just before planting it.
When the ground is ready (lightly wet and loosened) you can plant your tree.
- Dig a hole about 50 cm deep
- Put the tree inside, taking care of keeping the graft spot over the ground level.
- Spread the roots
- Refill the hole with a good earth without stones.
Farming
During the first years, it is necessary to keep tidy around the tree, by weeding or mulching, in order to avoid grass exhausting the ground. Provide for 2 dressings of manure: 1/3 at the beginning of April and 2/3 at the end of May, to be made up according to the ground nature and the size of the tree.
After 5 years, you will start an upkeep pruning, consisting in cutting deadwood and low branches in order to aerate the tree, increase the penetration of sunlight and hence strengthen it.
Insects, diseases: problems and solutions
On young trees:
Leaflet curling, generating withering: that’s moth
Serrated leaves: that’s weevil
On grown-up trees:
Yellow insects gathering along the main nervure: that’s greenfly
Accumulations of “black sawdust”: that’s an attack by walnut tree worm
Oily black spots circled with yellow: that’s blight, the most usual disease on walnut trees
Light grey spots, circled with black: that’s anthracnose
The presence of pests on your walnut tree does not justify a systematic intervention. If greenfly colonies develop, you can control them with greenfly killer sold in all garden centres. Because of the blight, trees can loose important quantities of walnuts: spray them with Bordeaux mixture as soon as leaflets spread out.
In autumn, leaves fall down and walnuts are shovelled up.
Actually, walnuts will fall down little by little and the crop will last for 2 or 3 weeks.
Collecting them regularly prevent them from staying too long on the ground and going rotten.
Immediately after the crop, spread walnuts in wooden boxes to dry them out and keep them in a cool, dry and aerated place.
To eat without moderation during all winter
