I’m from the land of Pinyon Pines. I gather pine nuts each year (unless the crop is really poor), and I tried a long time ago to grow a tree myself. Too much clay in my soil and the poor thing gave it up very quickly. If you’re intent on growing your own pine nuts I hope you’re very, very young. Otherwise you can pretty much forget it. Pinyons are EXTREMELY slow growing. We have a number of them near my work place and they have only put on 4 or 5 feet in the past 20 years. In addition to that their soil requirements are pretty strict. They need loose gravelly soil with little water. Don’t know where you are located but if you get lots of rain and you have tight soil you can forget trying to grow one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There's plenty of room for all God's creatures...............right next to the mashed potatoes.
Posts: 394 | Location: The high Utah desert. Zone 4/5 | Registered: November 01, 2003
If you have access to a Sunset Western Garden book, you can research the kinds of pines that have edible seeds, 'cause there's more than one kind. The Italians get them from Italian Stone Pines & I think there are others besides pinon in the US with edible seeds.
Thanks for the info. I guess my best bet is probably the sunset book. We get more inches of rain here than any other part of the US so I seldom have to water.
