Growing your own trees from nuts

I'll preface this with the fact that it's my wife that's "the Grower of Trees" in our household, so I'm only passing along some of her info. You're on a good start. First thing, they should be outside. Their makeup is expecting any conditions that our weather will throw at them. Trees, especially oaks, need deep pots. Yogurt pots are a good start if they have plenty of drainage holes. I'd suggest more soil/compost, probably right up to the rim. Place the seed at a depth of approx. equal to the length of the seed. Acorns in particular need to be fresh, cracked or old ones are unlikely to thrive. My wife uses a mix of soil, leaf mould, and compost but basic soil and compost is fine, the seed contains the all the nutrients the new tree needs to start. When roots start to appear out of the drainage holes, it's time to re-pot or place in a nursery bed to grow on. Good luck with your new trees!

One other point: If you have a rooks or crows, they are very liable to dig the seeds out of the pots. At the very least, they'll pull any plant tags out, completely screwing up any idea about what's in the pot. We have a 2" mesh cage over one group of pots and just mesh over another batch.

You're on to a good thing. It's very satisfying to see trees you started from scratch grow up. We have some oaks that she started from acorns that are over 12 feet tall and now producing their own acorns (although not yet viable).

Here's a link to Teasgasc similar to the UK one above, but I haven't read it.

I put the seeds in small mini pots wrapped in damp tissues, then inside a lunchbox with air holes and keep then in a coolish room for the warm periods or the fridge for cold ones - check once a weeks and remoisten and check for mold.

Separately if you need heat - don't think its needed for any native trees - you can buy small propagators - like a box with a small heated coil at the bottom.

Or I made a larger one using old stlyle light bulbs (40W or 100W) in the bottom of a lidl/aldi rack style mini green house - and slabs of insulation on 2 sides - and cover the whole thing at night with an old duvet - all inside a shed.