Once you are hooked by walnuts and want to grow more varieties, you find an extraordinary amount of choice. Charles Quest-Ritson explains more.
Now is the season for eating walnuts and drinking Port. I can’t say much about tawny, late-bottled and vintage, but I do know about walnuts. Wherever we have lived, we have always had walnut trees, although squirrels get most of the nuts. Goodness, how I wish that all the grey squirrels in the British Isles were exterminated so that our native reds could live once again in peace. My father-in-law planted a walnut to commemorate the birth of my wife and, although it is now a large and handsome tree, the squirrels have never left us a single nut. When we lived in France, we had huge crops off our walnut trees, but we only once saw a squirrel — and it was red.
Walnuts have semi-naturalised in England and most trees are seedlings. These wildlings are not the biggest and best, but they usually carry decent crops. Besides, grafting superior varieties onto seedlings is a challenge too great for most gardeners. The nuts, however, are always popular. When I was a boy, people used to turn up in the summer holidays asking if they could have a few to pickle in vinegar. We always said yes, although I thought nothing could taste more unpleasant. Wait until early in October, when your mature nuts fall to the ground and burst out of their husks. Their pale, fresh shells have a wonderful aura of newness. That’s the best time to eat them, before the skins start to exude dark bitter tannins that spoil the taste of the nuts themselves. We have never bothered to dry them because by this time of year — the season of Port and walnuts — the best of this autumn’s new-season nuts are already in the shops.
Choose your Christmas nuts carefully. I think the best are noix de Grenoble, called ‘Franquette’. They have thin, easily cracked shells, pale kernels and a delicious taste. I can’t be bothered with Chinese walnuts — so difficult to crack and to winkle out of their shells — nor with the tasteless California types. They are a variety called ‘Chandler’ bred at U. C. Davis and released as recently as 1979 to kickstart the California walnut industry. Its main attraction for growers is its heavy yields, but quantity does not bring quality.
Our so-called ‘English’ walnuts, Juglans regia, come originally from Central Asia, but, as are many good things, are grown in all parts of Europe where conditions are suitable.
READ MORE: Mark Diacono on how to grow walnuts
The International Dendrology Society tells us that ‘thousands of cultivars exist, selected for suitability for particular climates, fertility, yield, kernel size, shell thickness, resistance to various diseases and timing of leaf fall (late fall makes harvesting easier)’. Over the years, certain varieties have shown themselves notably well adapted to English conditions. Probably the best is ‘Broadview’, closely followed by ‘Buccaneer’ and ‘Lara’. All three fruit when relatively young, whereas many seedling walnuts take up to 20 years to start cropping. Their flavour is excellent, especially ‘Lara’, the nuts of which are said to taste ‘creamy’.
Walnuts are easy to grow. My wife’s walnut thrives on the edge of a chalk river in Wiltshire, but one of the National Collections flourishes at 700ft on Cotswold brash and another (rather small) collection is happy on a well-drained neutral soil in Yorkshire.
Once you are hooked by walnuts and want to grow more varieties, you find an extraordinary amount of choice. There are varieties suitable for small spaces, and others that fruit early or late, so that you have them from early August through to November. There are varieties such as ‘Lange van Lod’, with shells that are of great size — as much as 3in long — although the nuts are only ever of ordinary size. Some of the most exciting are the red walnuts, most of them raised in Central Europe (try ‘Rode Danau’), the skins of which are shades of crimson and make a fine contrast with the pale shells and the pure white flesh inside.
The summit of walnut worship is to attend one of the international shows or conferences. We don’t do this in England — and Brexit has made it difficult for us to join in — but the events are popular in main land Europe, where excited growers, mostly amateurs, discuss the merits of the exhibits and taste each other’s wares. Many of the people who come to these expressions of walnut joy have known each other for years and bring budwood of their best varieties to exchange with their mates. It may appear completely barmy to people who do not share or understand the passion of walnut lovers, but that is true of many gardeners with a specialist interest. There is no substantive difference between a village rose show and an Austrian walnut show. Except that you can’t eat roses.
Charles Quest-Ritson’s latest book The Olive Tree is out now
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