Pine Nut Pine

[jessaries]

I think I did something kinda impulsive and possibly not good.
I ordered pine nut pine seeds from Bountiful Gardens. (quick return on order, low frills packaging, good cause....) mean the idea of fresh pine nuts with fresh garlic & basil was too much to pass up.
However, today I heard that their is some disease (for lack of the right word, rust maybe) that gets pine nuts here and that reliable places are not selling pines. That was discouraging. Then I looked up pine nut trees and read it could take 6 to 12 years to actually get pine nuts:? Then I remembered how tiny pine nuts are and how much work shelling probably is?
Has anyone grown these? The packet has 5 seeds, 3 are small and even colored and 2 are larger & speckled-ish. What's up with that?
Thank you for any advice!!!!!

[Owen'nZoe]

I have no experience to offer, but will be watching this thread.

I've been planning to try a Dwarf Siberian Pine (I just don't have room for a huge evergreen here), but haven't gotten around to putting on in yet. The site I've been looking at for trees suggests using an innoculant when you plant, so they bear sooner, but yes, they do take a long time to bear, apparently. The dwarfs are supposed to bear in 6-8 years (with innoculant), and the large trees closer to a decade.

If you plant them, please let us know how it goes!

[jessaries]

I think I'm trying to talk myself out of planting them, but the curious side of me is voting to plant them. Maybe when the fun season is over I'll do them?

[MorganRiley]

wow...that explains why pine nuts are so expensive to buy in the store

is it a special type of pine tree? cause we have at least 4 evergreens in our back yard...dont know if any are pine and producing pine nuts though

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by MorganRiley

wow...that explains why pine nuts are so expensive to buy in the store

is it a special type of pine tree? cause we have at least 4 evergreens in our back yard...dont know if any are pine and producing pine nuts though

Yes, there are several different types of pines that bear pine nuts, but not all pines will have seeds big enough to bother with. Pinyon pines are the kinds that are commonly used in the US, but there are also Swiss Stone Pines, Siberian Stone Pines, Korean Pines, and other varieties.

I think the main thing affecting the cost of pine nuts is how labor-intensive it is to harvest them. I read an article about a Siberian man who makes his living wild-harvesting them, and you actually have to climb the tree, hand-pick whatever cones they can reach or shake down what you can, sun dry the cones, remove them from the cones, and remove the shells from each seed. The Siberian man in the story had actually fallen out of a tree while harvesting, and had been layed up for months recovering. I had no idea so much work when into those little packages of nuts!

[MorganRiley]

wow....that is really amazing!!
thanks for sharing!!!

I dont think I'll be climbing my trees anytime soon LOL

[jessaries]

Yes, but we have children, children to do these horrible tasks for us!!!!

I tease, I kid.... maybe

That is such a huge ammount of work to get a tiny pine nut!!! I reread the company's page and they said it was a low growing deal and I just wonder how low? I guess we will know one day, luckily my ILs have a few acres, I hope once I grow these they will let me plant them on the land somewhere? (these are people who live a mile from an orchard and don't plant apples, I mean they know they will do well....ugh!!!!)

[JessicaS]

You might check the forums here

http://www.arborday.org/