My hybrid chestnuts are growing like gangbusters!

[NickB79]

2. Yeah, the blight really did a number, so these are resistant hybrids

I'd never even seen a chestnut tree until I found two purebred American chestnuts at the MN Landscape Arboretum. As I researched them more, they quickly became my favorite plant. You can get more calories per acre with chestnuts than corn, and the nuts are more nutritious than corn as well. A tree can live for centuries with proper care, and their deep roots can shrug off droughts that would wipe out other crops. Plus, they bear heavy crops annually, unlike many other nut and fruit trees. At one point, there were more chestnut trees east of the Mississippi than any other tree, even outnumbering oaks and maples.

In my dreams, we'd start planting these and other species as permaculture to supply food and wildlife habitat instead of the water and fertilizer hungry GMO annual crops we currently base our food supply on. But in the meantime, I can grow and give away hundreds of trees a year for under $50 to get a pocket of growth started in my area.