SWEET chestnuts are everything a strawberry isn’t. Whereas the latter is all sun-warmed succulence enjoyed the instant it’s picked, only a few months from planting, sweet chestnuts might be the definition of slow food. For a year or two, they act like an ambivalent lover, offering scant encouragement by way of a few—and I do mean a few—chestnuts and it is your job to keep the faith. Unseen, long roots push deep in search of nutrients and water: eventually, this expansion is mirrored above ground, and when it is, all is quickly forgiven.
Autumn has become synonymous with sweet chestnuts for me. Their earthy, sweet nuttiness perfectly suits the short days and dropping temperatures and I love the festive cold-backs-and-warm faces palaver of cooking the first of the harvest, balanced on a cleaned shovel over a blazing fire. As an old friend often reminds me, smoke is an ingredient, and rarely do I feel it more than then. It’s also this time of year that I planted my first sweet chestnuts and am usually organizing for trees to go to those whose gardens, orchards, or batteries I have designed.
This story is from the October 06, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 06, 2021 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Love and logic
Two lovers who endured adversity and separation in life would become united in Paris after death, discovers Eileen Reid
Don't mock them
Plant a philadelphus, or mock orange, now for improbably lovely scent and cascades of sparkling blossom this summer, says John Hoyland
Home is where the art is
No trouble is too much for the Marquess of Cholmondeley to display to best effect Sir Antony Gormley's sculptures against the magnificent backdrop of Houghton Hall, even if it means cutting a hole in the floor, as Charlotte Mullins discovers
Bold and beautiful
The gardens at Broughton Grange, Oxfordshire The home of Sir Stephen and Lady Hester An arboretum, woodland garden, stumpery and heather garden all planted for artistic effect are among the many features that mark out this exciting garden, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Land of liquid gold
Greek cuisine-from delicious mezes to shellfish-might be 'tightly bound to the sparse soil and the blue sea', but it is sorely underrated, laments Tom Parker Bowles
An old way of life in rural France
Arcadian tranquillity, a wealth of cultural richness and a slow pace of life enchant John Lewis-Stempel as he reflects on his existence in France profonde
Deep in Hardy country
Hardy's beguilingly pretty Wessex is the setting for three houses with links to people and places that fuelled the writer's imagination
The benefit of foresight
The ability to anticipate the future is the secret of a successful building project
Nature's rarest gems
G. Collins & Sons specialises in the sourcing and setting of the finest natural fancy coloured diamonds the world has to offer
A prickly subject
Resembling a jumbo jacket potato on surprisingly long, scurrying legs, the hedgehog is Britain’s favourite mammal. Marianne Taylor takes a closer look beneath its spines