Recycling the old Tannenbaum this afternoon. Thoughts turn from sugar plums dancing in our heads to seed catalogs, the smell of potting soil and number of days to spring. Life is all about seasons and I took a moment as I stood at the base of the recycle pile to sing in a way that would make Johnny Mathis proud:
A compost ready stimulus
“Yes, it’s over, call it a day….
Sorry that it had to end this way.
No reason to pretend
We knew it had to end some day, this way“………
Everyone loves a good comeback story. The aging athlete returning to peak form in the championship game, the candidate counted out surges ahead on election night or the rock band you loved 20 years ago suddenly is in vogue again. The humble chestnut is enjoying that same resurgence lately and they’re not just for roasting anymore. American chestnut trees once covered our forests until a fungal disease wiped out almost all of them.
Today many are familiar with the chestnuts roasting Christmas song but few roast or make them part of their holiday diet.
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
The resurgence of the tree and the interest in the nuts have spurred alternate uses including holiday cheer. I noticed Michigan chestnuts are used in a Jolly Pumpkin Stone Special Holiday Ale along with white sage from California and Norwegian Juniper berries. Another Michigan produced ale uses chestnuts in a gluten free brew. Cheers! A lot more fun than having Jack Frost nipping at your nose.
The Chestnut and Chestnut trees have a long and interesting history. In an interview I did with author Diana Wells and her book ‘Lives of Trees’ she said years ago the nutritious nuts were dried and ground and stored in a drawer giving rise to the French expression “living out of a drawer” or being poor. Another expression lits de parlement or “talking beds” referred to chestnut leaves being used as mattress stuffing and the rustling noise when you turned over. It is estimated in the 1800′s every fourth tree along the eastern half of the country was a Chestnut tree. Fortunately plant pathologists are developing blight resistant replicas of the original tree so we can enjoy American chestnuts said to be tastier than their European and Asian counterparts. Today in a breeding technique called back-crossing an American Chestnut is crossed with a Chinese Chestnut. The resulting tree is crossed again and again until the only characteristic of the Chinese tree left is it’s blight resistance.
Roasting chestnuts is a romantic holiday experience….provided you score the nuts before roasting. If you don’t score them you will have a memorable experience of exploding smoking missile projectiles…not romantic but certainly memorable. You’ll also being eating healthy, chestnuts are low in calories, have less fat than many other nuts and could be considered a staple similar to potatoes or corn. They are also a good source of dietary fiber which gets my attention when trying to improve my cholesterol levels.
Thank goodness for the resurgence of the stately chestnut tree and the humble chestnut. A great comeback story of a nut that’s tough to crack.
Are there some trees turning color early in your neighborhood? You can spot the trees where fall has come early dotting yards along the roadway. If you have one of those trees you may not have an extroverted harbinger of a new season. 
The tree might be in trouble. Early frosts or cold weather does not necessarily speed up the change in color. Sunny days and cold nights does improve the reds in our fall landscape. But a tree that turns color earlier than the rest and begins to thin it’s foliage early could be a clear sign the tree is under stress. Many times it is an indication of decline, soil compaction or even girdling roots slowly choking the tree to death. If the weather has been dry irrigate from the trunk out to the drip line. Aerate the soil under the tree and then feed the tree when the leaves fall off this fall. Even though the tree isn’t growing and air temperatures are dropping, the roots can absorb nutrients in the warm soil and help the tree get off to a much better start next spring. Then mark your calendar for sometime in January to take another look at the tree. Prune out crossing branches, weak branches and open up the interior of the tree with your pruning. 
This will improve light and air penetration into the canopy of the tree next year and take some of the load off the tree at start up next spring.
You may be happy the tree is a colorful character and the life of the party but if it parties earlier than it’s friends it may be trying to tell you something!
