Thank you for this. What's amusing to me here is that each year I collect a load of chestnuts and try and plant them about. I do it for a variety of inane personal reasons - I hadn't appreciated that there are a load of useful reasons to do so too! ( https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F )

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Just don't leave bags of chestnuts outside - apparently foxes love them and will utterly lay waste to them. Who knew?

- ed: Oh, actually, it turns out I don't - Horse-chestnuts aren't the same species as sweet or Spanish chestnuts.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_hippocastanum

Great account, and if there were one takeaway, chestnut trees are more interesting than I imagined