Many people think of almonds as nuts. But if you ask them to tell you exactly how it grows, they are likely to be confused. This delicious fruit ripens on trees or shrubs and is biologically closest to a plum.
Family ties
Almonds, together with sweet cherries, cherries, peaches and some other plants, belong to the Plum genus and the Pink family. It blooms very much like its counterparts: delicate white and pink single flowers up to 2.5 cm in diameter. In the Mediterranean, China, Crimea, Central Asia, the Caucasus and other regions with a similar mild climate, where almonds grow, often the period of its flowering celebrated as a holiday.
Depending on the species, almonds can be either a tree or a shrub, but always with an abundance of numerous thin shoots and branches. Plants usually take root in small groups at a distance of 5-7 meters from each other. They reach a height of up to ten meters, but more often they complete their growth at 4-6 meters. The average lifespan of an almond is from 40 to 70 years, and it is capable of bearing the first fruits already in the fourth year of life.
Almonds are propagated by seeds, seedlings, cuttings and root division of the bush. In this case, plants are necessarily grafted. As an experiment - not only other varieties of almonds, but also related fruit plants.
A curious feature of almonds is that it always blooms earlier than other trees and shrubs. Flowers are pollinated by insects, so it is advisable to place hives in an almond garden or nearby to get a harvest.
A bone, not a nut
Almond leaves release later than flowers and sheds them very early. Thanks to this, all the forces of the plant go to the ripening of the fruit. Biologists call it a monostable. This is a type of fruit with clearly separated inner layers. The stone can be stony or leathery, the intercarp is always fleshy, and the extracarp is thin.
Similar odnokostyanka are cherry, plum, coconut, etc. In almonds, by contrast, the intercarp is inedible. The shape of the almond fruit is similar to a bone, which people later use in cooking, medicine and perfumery. In appearance, the almond fruit is dry and velvety pubescent.
At the end of ripening, the fruits begin to burst, and the bone can be easily removed from the pericarp. At this time, cloth is spread under the trees and the finished fruits are knocked down with sticks. The harvested almonds are sorted: easily peeled almonds are folded separately, and the rest is sent to the peeling apparatus. The degree of adhesion of the shell to the bone is influenced by the weather during the summer: the more it rains, the more often the peel swells and shrinks - the more difficult it is to separate it.
To make it easier to harvest, branches that are too tall are pruned before bud formation. As a result, it is convenient to reach with sticks to the very top of the tree.
Peeled seeds are dried in the sun and in a dryer. They can be eaten raw or used to make treats.
