The harvest time of the various chestnut species and varieties can vary considerably and is also dependent on the weather, but is always in autumn. You can collect early varieties as early as September, while late varieties are only ripe around the end of October.
Children collect chestnuts to do handicrafts with
What can I do with my collected chestnuts?
Only chestnuts or chestnuts are edible. Horse chestnuts are inedible to poisonous. However, these fruits are ideal for decorative purposes and for handicrafts. Extracts from the horse chestnut seeds are often used in various herbal medicines. Horse chestnuts are also popular as animal feed, for example for feeding wild animals in winter. Just ask your responsible forester.
The essentials in brief:
- Harvest from September to early November
- Sweet chestnuts often cannot be stored for long
- Horse chestnuts inedible, but interesting as a remedy
- Horse chestnuts popular as (wild) animal feed
tips
Sweet chestnuts have a shell with many fine spines, horse chestnut shells have significantly fewer and short spines.