You’re Gonna Grow What??? how chestnuts chose us

I wasn’t expecting to join an American agricultural renaissance.  But in looking back, this tree seemed to choose me.  crazy talk, I know, let me explain..

As a new “learning-as-I go” farmer, I wanted to find a high-value crop that didn’t require specialized implements or a tremendous amount of acreage to be financially successful.  That led me toward growing some sort of tree that either had fruit or nuts, or would be harvested for its wood. But many options required a waiting period of 10+ years to see income—which is an unbearable amount of time for children, like me,  to wait! And since many fruit trees and other nut trees require weekly spraying with chemicals, we were quickly narrowing our list.

As we started looking at chestnuts, we learned that the U.S. consumes 20 – 25 million pounds of chestnuts annually.  However, we import over 85% of those chestnuts from Europe and China, while only having 2,750 acres of chestnut orchards in production in the US.  It would take decades of planting just to catch up with domestic demand.

So there we were with chestnuts . . .  But would there be a market for our product? ‘Who eats chestnuts?’ is a question I frequently hear.  Most people have no idea what a chestnut even looks like (though we get all nostalgic at the thought of them “roasting on an open fire.”) Well, turns out, we were on to something bigger than we knew.

Chestnuts retail for around $6/pound, and a mature orchard can yield 2,000–4,000 pounds per acre.   And best of all—chestnut trees start bearing nuts within four to seven years.  Our trees at Alpine Farms are Chinese-American crosses and they came from Chestnut Hill Tree Farm in Florida, Nolin River Nut Tree Nursery in Kentucky, Empire Chestnut Co. in Ohio and Forrest Keeling Nursery in Missouri.  The first 375 trees we planted in February were two to three years old.  So we hope to have a couple nuts this fall and more next year. Then in 2016 we should have enough to start selling in small quantities.

My kids have been known to set up lemonade in the neighborhood, so when you pass a stand in Birmingham selling chestnuts, you’ll know its us.

I’ve said that chestnuts chose me. In 2007—before a farm was even a possibility—we moved to a street in Vestavia Hills named Chestnut Road. Long before I was hooked on chestnuts, that tiny seed was growing in our lives. It’s funny how God works.