Author Archives: Tom Turner

City farming with Castanea sativa, the sweet, beautiful and delicious chestnut

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Charles II planted avenues of sweet chestnut in Greenwich Park in 1660 - and they continue to yield a good crop of delicious nuts

Charles II planted avenues of sweet chestnut in Greenwich Park in 1660 - and they continue to yield a good crop of delicious nuts

The yield from a mature woodland of Castanea sativa is similar to the yield of rice from a paddy field, both nutritionally and in terms of harvested weight:

  • Chestunt yields range from 1-5 tonnes per hectare (this figure could be raised by careful management).
  • A good individual chestnut tree may yield more than 25 kg per year.
  • Rice yields, in the Phillipines, were raised from 1.16 tons per hectare in 1960 (according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) to 3.59 tons per hectare in 2009. The yield from organic rice is about one third the yield for intensively farmed rice.
  • Chestnut timber is highly valued and is said to be more durable that oak when used outdoors.
  • The land beneath and around the chestnut trees in Greenwich Park was used for grazing deer, which provided organic  meat.
  • When growing chestnuts, you do not need to spend half your life bent double in muddy water being eaten alive by insects which enjoy the hot steamy conditions more than you do
  • Harvesting chestnuts provides healthy autumn exercise for urban populations

So here is my call to the world’s landscape architects: plant parks and road verges with Castanea sativa, the Sweet, Beautiful and Nutricious Chestnut Tree! You can make a substantial contribution to (1) world food supply (2) world biodiversity (3) combating global warming (4) nutrition, exercise and health. The health benefits of chestnuts are as follows:

  • Chestnuts, unlike other nuts and seeds, are relatively low in calories; contain less fat but are rich in minerals, vitamins and phyto-nutrients that benefit health.
  • Nutritionally, chestnuts are similar to other starchy foods such as sweet potato, sweet corn, potatoes etc, consisting of mainly starch. However, they also contain high quality proteins.
  • Chestnuts are good source of dietary fiber; they provide 8.1 g (about 21% of RDI) per 100 g. Fiber diet helps lower blood cholesterol levels by remove excess cholesterol absorbing in the intestines.
  • Chestnuts stand out from other nuts and seeds because of their nutrition contents. They are exceptionally rich in vitamin-C. 100 g nuts provide 43 mg of vitamin C (72 % of DRI). Vitamin C is essential for the formation of matrix in teeth, bones and blood vessels. Being a strong anti-oxidant, it offers protection from harmful free radicals.
  • Chestnuts are the one of the nuts rich in folates. 100 g nuts provide 62 mg of folates (or 15.5%). Folic acid is required for the formation of red blood cells, DNA synthesis. Adequate consumption of food rich in folates during peri-conception period helps prevent neural tube defects in the fetus.
  • Chestnuts are a rich source of mono-unsaturated fatty like oleic acid (18:1) and palmitoleic acids (16:1). Studies suggest that monounsaturated fats in the diet help lower total as well as LDL (bad cholesterol) and increase HDL (good cholesterol) levels in the blood. Mediterranean diet which is rich in dietary fiber, monounsaturated fatty acids, omega fatty acids and antioxidants help prevent coronary artery disease and strokes by favoring healthy blood lipid profile.
  • Chestnuts are an excellent source of minerals such as iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and zinc. Provide very good amount of potassium (518 mcg / 100 g). Potassium helps counter hypertensive action of sodium, lowers heart rate and blood pressure. Iron helps prevent microcytic-anemia. Magnesium and phosphorus are important components of bone metabolism.
  • Chestnuts are also rich in many important B-complex groups of vitamins. 100 g of nuts provide 11% of niacin, 29% of pyridoxine (vit.B-6), 100% of thiamin, and 12% of riboflavin.
  • Chestnuts, like hazelnuts and almonds, are free in gluten and therefore popular ingredient in the preparation of gluten free food formulas for gluten-sensitive, wheat allergy and celiac disease persons.
  • The Chinese Chestnut (Castanea mollissima) is particularly rich in vitamin A. It provides 202 IU per 100 g.

Price comparison: organic rice and organic chestnuts:

AND DON’T FORGET: Chestnuts are delicious.


The Green Man in landscape architecture, garden design and world culture

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The Green Man, Woman and Child

Members of the Green Family

Wiki has a useful entry on the Green Man in world culture. He can be ‘a sculpture, drawing, or other representation of a face… Green Men are frequently found on carvings in churches and other buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical)…. Found in many cultures around the world, the Green Man is often related to natural vegetative deities springing up in different cultures throughout the ages. Primarily it is interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, or “renaissance,” representing the cycle of growth each spring’.
My interpretation is that the Green Man is a symbol of the relationship between Human Nature and Wild Nature. He would be a good subject for an international design competition. Could the two figures in the photographs be Green Children and, if so, where is the Green Woman?.

The Green Woman

The Green Woman


Two days in the lives of two London trees in spring 2011

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I was concluding that the leaves would never return to London’s trees when, in the snap of two fingers, the spring is rushing ahead. The above two photographs were taken two days apart, as March turned to April. The weather was much colder than usual before Christmas but since then has been relatively warm.

Three days more growth

The same scene three weeks later

Is Ken Yeang's brilliant landscape architecture sustainable?

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Or is Ken Yeang’s landscape architecture subject to the same criticism as Patrick Blanc’s green walls? I would of course be much happier if these approaches to landscape architecture were genuinely sustainable. But I have my doubts. My guesses are (1) the planted balconies will be great features for wealthy residents who have more than enough indoor space (2) less-wealthy residents, especially in inclement climates, would rather have more indoor space than a big balcony, though sliding doors would offer the choice of indoor or outdoor space (3) the extra habitat space will do a little good for biodiversity, accoustics, carbon balance etc (4) but all these benefits could be obtained at less cost by other means (5) real people would not produce the nice green fluff on Ken Yeang’s drawings: there would be no visual unity at all to the balconies. Some would be richly planted. Others would provide storage for mountain bikes, or washing lines, or bird cages, or plastic furniture and dead plants in ugly containers. That’s life.
So I am a sceptic who hopes to be proved utterly wrong.

The passing of a friend: Anna Mendelson of the Angry Brigade

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Passing time on the web, I discovered that a long-lost friend died in 2009: Anna Mendleson.
I knew Anna for 3 days only. Drinking hot sweet tea with a friend at a cafe in Bodrum in 1968, I watched her climb out of an old landrover. She came over and asked if we were looking for a place to sleep, explaining that she had come to collect someone who had not arrived. We said ‘yes please’ and were driven on a rough track to a peaceful villa in a remote seaside village, where we spent time swimming, cooking and eating – for which Anna took no money. One night there was a village wedding. The unmarried girls from the village, in long dark clothes, took it in turn to do modest shuffles on a low stage. Each was greeted with mild applause. There was a little moonlight and a glow from some tungsten bulbs. Anna, in a very short orange dress, then took the stage and lit up everything. She did a wildly energetic dance with bare limbs shooting in every direction. All the fire of the 1960s was there. This led to a storm of applause from the menfolk and dark frowns of frozen fury from the girls. The next I heard of Anna, she was arrested for being a member of the Angry Brigade. The police arrived and were horrified to find a large room with many people and a doorless doorway beyond which was a visible toilet with a girl using it. The police were genuinely horrified and, not for this reason alone, Anna was sent to jail for ten years. They released her on bail after four years. She changed her name and became a poet. I believe she was a kind person and wrongly convicted. Given all the police fabrication of evidence for terrorist trials since that date, I am convinced that Anna told the truth at her trial – and that the police lied. One can but remember Kipling’s words, after the death of his son in the First World War: “If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied.” Here is one of Anna’s poems, published under the pseudonym Grace Lake:

i.m. Laura Riding
if thought be woven from the brain wished ill may learn to love again
a moonlit dusk by lamplight’s side a less anxious life
where proof of purse is not in pride nor strife a jokey vendetta
beginning twice more to examine extremes of sanctioned shapes
which knew to lighten mechanics with previewed disfunction
once the essentials are proven and normalities intergraved
it will not be mine to decide who are the damned and who the saved.

She died age 61 and here is her obituary. RIP