Not only can new beech trees be grown from beechnuts, you can also use them in the kitchen. Picking them up in the forest or park is a bit tedious, but it's worth it, because you can rarely buy the nutrient-rich fruits.

recognize beechnuts

Beechnuts are triangular nuts that come from the common beech.

They are recognizable by the spiked shell in which the triangular nuts are located. These are covered by a brown skin and are white on the inside.

Sometimes there are only the seeds under the tree because the shell has been torn open and is still hanging on the tree.

The best time to collect beechnuts

European beeches shed their corners in September and can simply be picked up. Only trees older than 40 years develop fruit.

Beeches only have a plentiful harvest every five to seven years. In the intervening years they only produce small quantities.

Since many of the fruits are deaf nuts, i.e. contain no seeds, you need a lot of nuts if you want to bake cakes with them or plan to plant a beech tree.

Prepare collected beechnuts for the kitchen

  • Clean beechnuts
  • Detach from the shell
  • Roast
  • or scald with water

Since beechnuts are slightly poisonous, you must roast the fruit or scald it with hot water. This neutralizes the toxins fagin and hydrocyanic acid. You can then eat the nuts safely.

Beechnuts only get their typical aromatic taste when they are roasted.

Sort out beechnuts for sowing

Even if you only want to grow one beech for the garden, you need several beechnuts.

Many of the nuts are hollow and do not contain seeds.

To sort out seedable fruit, place the beechnuts in a tub of water. The filled nuts sink to the ground. Pigeon nuts float on top and can be easily collected.

tips and tricks

If you want to collect larger amounts of beechnuts, take your dust pan and hand brush with you into the forest. You can use this to expose the corners under the tree and sweep them up with the dustpan. Be careful not to stir up the soil too much. At home, the corners only have to be freed from leaves, sticks and dirt.

Category:

Vegetable garden