If you’re looking to add a food source to your homestead that will produce year after year, adding edible nut trees can be a great option. In this post, I talk with a propagator from Johnson’s Nursery who offers lots of valuable insight on which edible nut trees to plant, what to avoid, and how to forage.
One of the best and earliest things to do when you purchase a homestead property is to plant trees, especially trees that are able to produce food for your family. Edible nut trees will take some time to establish before they can produce, so making it a priority to plant them early on in your homesteading journey is a wise one. Fruit trees and nut trees are great additions to a homestead as they offer fruit for many years once they’re established. But as I considered which nut trees to add to our own homestead, I started to wonder if there were certain types of nut trees I should be looking to plant. Which edible nut tree varieties grow well in Wisconsin? Are there specific types that suit a homestead well? How can I forage for nuts while I wait for my nut trees to grow?
I reached out to Ben French, a propagator from Johnson’s Nursery in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. With a B.S. in Forestry from Stevens Point and a minor in Biology, he had a lot of helpful information to share about growing and foraging for nut trees in Wisconsin and other cold weather climates. In short, American Filberts and Butternut are the ideal edible nut producing trees for a homestead because of their short growing time, useful and tasty nuts, and easiness to grow.
Table of Contents
- Native Edible Nut Trees in Wisconsin
- Other Nut Trees to Grow in Wisconsin
- Planting and Growing Your Edible Nut Trees
- Which Edible Nut Trees are Best for a Homestead?
- Foraging for Wild Native Nuts in Wisconsin
- Purchasing Nut Trees for Your Homestead
- Be sure to share this post!
- Looking for more ideas on what to plant or forage on your homestead?
Native Edible Nut Trees in Wisconsin
Before interstate trucking, people had to grow a lot of their own nuts or gather them in the wild if they wanted them in our region. Here in Wisconsin, some of the great native nut trees that homesteaders of the past may have considered growing included:
- American Beech – used as a flour substitute.
- Black Walnut – used for raw nuts, hulls for ink, and wood
- Butternut – can be eaten crushed, boiled, raw, or processed into other foods
- Shagbark Hickory – best eaten dried, toasted, or roasted
- American Filbert (shrub) – used to eat raw, processed into nut butter, and used for baked goods
Other Nut Trees to Grow in Wisconsin
Even though some edible nut trees do not grow in Wisconsin natively, it doesn’t mean that they can’t grow and thrive to produce well on a homestead. French mentions that these trees are not native to Wisconsin, but could also do well in the Wisconsin climate and growing zones.
- English Walnut – marginally hardy
- Pecan – marginally hardy – nuts sometimes don’t ripen
- Hybrid Hazelnut – shrub
- Shellbark hickory, Hicans, and Chestnuts – focus on hardy cultivars as many will not be perfectly hardy in Zone 4
Planting and Growing Your Edible Nut Trees
Before ordering and then planting your edible nut trees anywhere, be sure you have a spot that will be a compatible growing location for your tree’s needs. Some trees prefer different types of soil and growing conditions than others. It’s important to know which type your tree prefers so that your tree has the best chance for survival and success.
French says that all of these edible nut trees were specifically mentioned because they are the hardiest and most easily purchased plants. He says that they will be fairly easy to grow and should succeed on a wide variety of soils and conditions. There are “other” nuts that can certainly work, but there are more problems more often with their specific culture, either being picky on soil conditions, aren’t quite hardy or are difficult to come by.
Which Edible Nut Trees are Best for a Homestead?
Some edible nut trees serve homesteaders better than others. It’s important to recognize the purpose you have in mind for planting the nut tree before you actually plant it. How will the nuts be used? What are your goals for them? Then, once you’ve established your goals, start evaluating which nut tree is going to best fit those goals.
Ben recommends planting a multitude of plants that are low maintenance and high yielding. Because nut crops are notorious for masting, meaning that they only produce high quality crops every couple of years, his suggestion of growing different species will enhance your likelihood of harvesting a good crop on one of your trees in any given year.
Overall Top Edible Nut Producer for Homesteaders: American Filberts
As one of the quickest to produce edible nuts, the American Filbert, or American Hazelnut, is a great addition to a homestead because of its relatively short maturity time. You will begin to see nuts around 2-3 years after planting. It grows as a 3-8 foot shrub, making it adaptable to many different types of areas. The nuts produced are easy to crack and harvest, making them an ideal edible nut variety for a homestead. The nuts can be described as having a nutty, toasty, and slightly earthy flavor.
Butternut and Black Walnut also mature in a relatively short time frame, in tree terms. These trees will give you nuts within 12 years or so after planting.
Edible Nut Trees That are Not Ideal for Homesteaders
Some edible nut trees take longer to grow and produce than others. The American Beech Tree and Shagbark Hickory will take 20-30 years before you begin to harvest nuts from the tree, which may make them less appealing for a homesteader hoping for a bountiful harvest in a short amount of time.
While black walnuts are delicious, they are extremely difficult to crack and have a very small yield after the effort has been given. My grandpa talks about how his mom would have them crack enough walnuts for the Christmas fudge and how long it would take to crack them all and give her just that 1 cup. If you’re looking for an easy nut to crack and harvest, Black Walnuts may not be a good choice.
Additionally with Black Walnuts: The tree itself produces a chemical called juglone, which is toxic. It can be found in all parts of the plant, but is most abundant in the tree buds, nut hulls, and roots. This poison prevents other plants from growing around the tree and can be deadly for pets who may ingest it. It can also cause serious poisoning in humans if ingested. These facts should be considered before adding a Black Walnut Tree to your homestead property.
Foraging for Wild Native Nuts in Wisconsin
Growing your own nut trees is wonderful and will provide for your family for many years. But, as discussed earlier, growing edible nut trees takes time. It will be years before you see the first nut from the tree you planted. Foraging for native nuts in Wisconsin can be a great way to enjoy and harvest nuts from the land before your trees are producing.
As mentioned before, some of the native nuts in Wisconsin listed above are fairly common. Learning where to look for those trees based on the types of environments that they grow in can be really useful towards helping you get started with foraging for nuts in Wisconsin.
Butternut Tree
What to look for: The Butternut Tree is easiest to locate in fall when the football shaped nuts are beginning to drop. If the nut is fuzzy and greenish with brownish black ripening, it’s probably a butternut. Butternut isn’t as common as it used to be due to a disease known as butternut canker, which significantly reduces the lifespan of a tree as well as reducing it’s overall vigor, leading to weak growth, low nut yield and eventually, death. From anecdotal observations, the trees can still reach about 30 years of age, and bear fair crops.
Where to find it: Butternut trees can be found along the edges of woods and hedgerows and atop rocky areas and in riverside woods. Butternut needs a lot of sunlight to grow well, so stay more sunny than not.
Black Walnut
What to look for: The Black Walnut is perhaps the most common of the edible nut trees in Wisconsin, especially in the southern half of the state. It is a stately tall forest tree with heavy branches and dark bark. The Nuts are rounded and covered in a smooth light green husk. Difficult to crack and extract, the nut meat is highly desired by wildlife.
Where to find it: Rich soil produces the best plants, but these edible nut trees are found in a wide array of conditions. Look for them at woodland edges, old fields, pastures and river and creek side conditions.
Shagbark Hickory
What to look for: Characteristic shaggy bark, large, arching and peeling gray plates cover the trunk of this edible nut tree. Often found in groves and clusters in a woodland setting. The more sunny and open the better. Large compound leaves and thick branches are also helpful in ID. The nuts are coated in a green husk that shatters and breaks away as the light cream colored to tan nuts ripens inside. This plant is alternate bearing, meaning there is only a strong crop every other year or so.
Where to find it: You can find these trees usually on drier spots on hills, as they prefer open and sunny locations. They are tolerant of heavy clay soils and rocky dry spots. They can also be in nearly pure stands known as hickory bushes.
American Filbert
What to look for: The American Filbert is easiest to see when the sets of encapsulated and frilled nut clusters are ripening. This shrubby plant is usually 4-8 feet tall with multiple arcing canes coming from the underground root systems.
Where to find it: This edible nut tree can be found in many habitats, but does best with a lot of sun. Hedgerows, forest edges, and wetland edges often have large healthy colonies. Can also be found in forests, but usually there it is a much smaller and looser looking plant with scant nut production.
Purchasing Nut Trees for Your Homestead
All of these edible nut trees can be purchased from Johnson’s Nursery at this link: Public Inventory | Retail & Plant Center | Johnson’s Nursery (jniplants.com) A special thank you to Ben French for contributing to this article and sharing this wealth of information!
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Looking for more ideas on what to plant or forage on your homestead?
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