The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: Fleecewife on August 26, 2019, 06:30:44 pm
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OK so nuts are not fruit, but there's nowhere else to put my question.
This year we have quite a few healthy looking green hazelnuts in our hedgerows. Can they be eaten green like walnuts, or do we wait until they turn brown on the tree? In a previous year we had what we thought were going to be fat juicy nuts, but when we picked them they were empty or shriveled, hence my question.
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I don't know the answer to your question, FW, but our labradors reckon they are really tasty when they're green!
They're gobbling them off the ground as through they are a real treat.
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https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=48959.0 (https://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=48959.0)
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I've found three or four hazel trees with much larger nuts than the usual tiny ones around her.. and also wandering around I've identified several different shaped nut types even amongst the smaller ones. Reading suggests wild hybridisation.
Here in mid-wales at the moment most of the nuts are formed within the green shells and can be cracked and removed and eaten. Experience suggests that saving them to brown just ends up with shrunken useles stuff.So while walking the dog I pick and crack a few for myself (just to annoy the squirrels) while keeping an eye on progress with a plan to grab what i can the moment they start to brown on the trees. Year before last i did quite well. Last year the squirrels beat me at the game.
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Three bushes almost next to each other in the same hedge, same sunlight, same ditch for water:Obvious differences is size and shape. coin is a £1
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RosnRuJaIYUhnJwMJcexp1pxZJVgWa7cgfXIHI8dwzScbuSs2hzHuAbGkgS8uwHmteNOLDdlER6gviMvKJ-1m4ImvE-3-bB_9FZPcIA-JrPBKPIlNSpEOTet09DbfKVKRFUZGbZUTmDjeX2OKGtcnyi340XZ8aVwqGF6WrJNHUwZWw7ke9RLQzLoYVfJS14pTerAlSvGFuYxHvFAyEQEX2CgwfeKUU_SDWBKQ04ktZgNCc1Syd5YyOEg87GQzOEdm5xpfijAhl2TfjoX9sx8HYHy0YOJqfGkwe75265I2hoIPDFgTZddCP9qnyJCfkciIXSAOGQ0c1S4HPwfShto-zyN1yrchUXfo4fmA9dhchE1svgFEFc66yfshA8gE4Fa63MaJ2Hz7dbVMGtQJGdOX5--mbyfvQckMlb27BeCeo4B-1udjoEugMXoRqpmfrwSaR-cz9oTr36ZnBU7ew36Sf2IbaaXvNwyUvoUv2syCh8NssTyhgSpg-2X5k_Jh11hk3MQlyyb3rAelrgoTBL6WSVFnPXj4i5cH743g5NrWvp5O92cxUFPktO0dX_sHRFNJ_pB6S8aDyfA2ng4uav4RvhaBQn4zUraaR2VedNDIvdNDrUx-t49xNcFDYK3hfPogD8qebA4OQxo7-ZTB3_o9kkpm6WY4A=w1251-h938-no)
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The first trees with nuts loosening in their cups. This is a small variety but the nut inside is fine. I pick a large pocketful while walking the dog. 2L icecream tubful so far.
pgk
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I've doubled my collected quantity now. Tose that wonlt come out of the cups easily are left in a collander to ventilate/dry and after 4/5 days they loosen. The loose ones are in another collander at the back of the rayburn to dry further and tonight I started cracking the oldest. Those kernals are going to be drying on the rayburn in a bowl for a few days. Google suggest freezing but i may try a mix of soem frozen and some of the driest just put in jars with the risk of mould or hanging in old tights?Unless anyone has better suggestions
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I read that they shouldn't be eaten green. They look most appetising at that stage to me! Anyway we picked them yesterday green and there are not many. I've got them in a basket to dry.
I can't see your pics pgkevet - just a stop sign. Are larger hazelnuts not filberts or cobnuts? Drying them just right sounds like an art :D
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I was wondering if there was a photo as well, with you mentioning a pound coin PGK ?
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..was having trouble with pic being visible from location saved..try again: Pics will be in wrong order
Filbert (as I understand it) is more to do with length of cup sepals than actual nut size? The more I look at the assorted variations of nuts on my land the more I find. And size of shell doesn't always equate with size of nut
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(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/t361/Peter_Knapp/0/0181a0aa-68d6-4cc3-a27a-f9a9fe716fdd-original.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds)
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That's a whopper!
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I know of six bushes that produce the big ones. this is the first year that the lot hasn't been squirrelled. Previous best was 12 nuts total.
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Mid wales they're starting to fall out of the trees on their own the last 2 days. Low squirel numbers means lots of nuts still around despite my on-going collecting - several kilos so far.
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Lucky you! Our hazels are mostly in the hedgerows, so they get trimmed along with the hedge every second winter. We were surprised to get any nuts this year, but there's only a small heap. Still more to pick.
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Mine are mostly hedgrows too but I don't have a hedge brusher, too many hedges for an old man to even think about trying to lay or do anything fancy with. About 2-3 years ago i worked my way along and cut away all the overhanging low stuff and did some thinning so I can top right up to the fence witout havign branches dragging on the tractor. It's grown back from that hence the nut-fest. Hedges are getting pretty tall but that's not so bad with my valley location and the way the wind will whistle through on breezy days.
Im going to have to start working my way along those hedges again this winter-- will probably take me two years this time 'cos I'm slowing down. It's got to me more than a mile of hedges, perhaos 2 miles in all: chainsaw. polesaw, loppers and silky - cart it by the waggon load and chip it for the veggie patch.
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I might be wrong but I think most wild hazel nuts are actually filberts which are a lot smaller than the Spanish hazel nut . If you do find a decent size nut see how many you can get off the same plant . Come Nov pop them in a big plant pot an inch and a half deep ( 5 x the biggest dia of the seed ) & cover it with some mesh to keep the squirrels out & water well . Put them in a shaded position that gets a bit of wintersun . By May you should start to see the new nut tree's emerging .
Pot grow them to about a foot tall give them a few BabyBio feeds in spring & late (ish ) summer , then plant them out in the early November when the leaves have fallen .
Planting them through a hole cut in a couple of sheets of thick weighted down cardboard helps keep the weeds at bay & stops them drying out till they are strong enough rooted to crack on by themselves .
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There's certainly several types of identifiably different hazelnuts here. Reading suggests many may be natural hybrids. The largest nuts are from several bushes in one hedgerow albeit smaller nut variety bushes there too.
I shan't bother with planting any new ones cos I've got more than enough and unlikely I'd be around for the benefit although i did put in several sweet chestnut from supermarket nuts a few years ago and may just be around for the product. My walnuts and money puzzles will have to do as a legacy 'cos the odds are i won't be around for those either.
I might put some more cherries and a plum or two in but with 13 cherry trees so far the birds still haven't left me any.
The largest nuts may have been cross pollinated with the smaller varieties so it'd still be a lottery. I did try and germinate supermarket nuts with the chestnuts with dismal failure on the hazel and almonds and walnuts. I guess they'd been sterilised.