Chestnuts anyone??

We planted a chestnut tree few yrs ago & this yr for the 1st time its given nuts Thing is I don`t know when to pick em or how They`ve very hard n spiky at the mo, know they should be ready soon cos already the men are roasting em on street corners, so anyone know when & how I should pick em please, ta

I would of thought about now,because conkers must be ready and they are horse chestnut,and yours would be sweet chestnut. will you roast them and use them for stuffing at christmas.Why not pick one and open it they should have brown shells when you get them out of the spikey casing.

Thats the thing Z/B they`re still attached very strongly to the tree & are in clumps of 3/4 so I`m going to have to pull hard or cut em off???????

I`m going to roast em & eat em we`ve only got about 3 dozen, yep I counted em think cos they`re are first be better than using em for stuffing And the other thing is how do I get the spiky casing off

My sweet chestnut is starting to drop now. The prickly cases seem to split open when they are ready. The nuts in mine are too small too roast though, I wonder if there is more than one kind of sweet chestnut???

Ah right thanks Het
Was thinking usually when fruits are ready they`ll drop or show sign but these are really attached I`d really have to pull so hard or cut them to get them off Do`nt know if theres more than 1 kind either just thought sweet chestnut was a sweet chestnut
I`ll be really disappointed if they`re small inside probably be my luck now I`m looking forward to em being our first crop
I`m going to try get 1 off n see now might as well be disapponted sooner rather than later eh

Had to cut it off then use a knife to open it but all the spiky things were still stuck to it & its still green Can`t tell if its little or big tho cos couldn`t get spiky things off & a few tiny crawlies came of them
So I`ve worked out there not ready ripe & those spiky things are sharp very sharp so in future will have patience & wait
Hope it`ll just be worth it tho

Sounds like its definitely not ready Christine. The spiky cases come off pretty easy and the little kernels inside just fall out. They are really prickly though aren't they and the stupid dogs still try to pick them up!! I was quite disaapointed because when I first moved to the house and found out it was a sweet chestnut I though great ...roast chestnuts. I will take a picture for you when I get home if you like?

No not ready Het & yep defo really prickly got a red thumb to prove it
These are our first so its going to be fun watching what the dogs`ll make of them
I`m really pleased we`ve got this far with it cos everyone told us it wouldn`t grow here & stupid to bother but it has & proved em wrong I was thinking cos its young tree only 4/5yrs maybe first crop wouldn`t be so good??? Don`t mind em being small so long as they`re tasty
Yea you take a pic & I`ll take 1 of ours & we can compare chestnuts

We're gonna take the kids to my MIL's woodland to see if the chestnuts are ready for picking. The kids stand on OH's shoulder and whack 'em off with sticks. Many a time OH has been hit on the head with either a stick or a spiky casing

oh that takes me back to childhood, Dad taking us to the conker trees and throwing sticks up to knock them down, taking them home and stringing them up. We used to do all sots, bake them, soak them in vinegar to try and make them winners. Even now when I pass the Horse Chestnut trees along the road I can't help searching through the leaves on the ground and picking them up