Project Description
(Castanea sativa)
🍃Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) trees are growing along the East coast of Crete here in the mountains. They look magnificently huge when you drive past and can grow up to 35 meters with a 7 foot diameter trunk.
🍃Once planted, a tree will take 20 years to fruit with chest nuts. They have been part of the Greek and Roman diet for thousands of years. One dried and cooked they are sweet and used in an array of deserts and jams.
🍃Some chestnut trees are said to live for 2000 years.
🍃Sweet chestnut flowers have many medicinal properties and are one of the Bach Flower Remedies used for complete emotional despair when one has reached their endurance and can no longer cope.
🌰🍃Classic herbalist, Culpepper wrote:
“if you dry the chestnut, both the barks being taken away, beat them into powder and make the powder up into an electuary with honey, it is a first-rate remedy for cough and spitting of blood”.
The leaves have been used traditionally as a tea for fevers and coughs.
🌰In Elos, Western Crete, they have a ‘Sweet Chestnut Festival every year in October where many recipes are shared and celebrated.
