Hazelnut update

So I picked my hazels last week, a few had fallen by themselves. I was going to leave them a while longer but an allot neighbour had been researching his (he has a mixed hedge planted by the council when he took over the plot a few years back. It was planted to screen off a wire boundary fence which runs alongside a pavement, so also helped to discourage people from hopping over the fence too. It has spikey hawthorn and blackthorn as well as the hazels). It was his first year too so new ground for both of us.
Anyway, he read that it was the right time to harvest. Although only a few had been falling off, they came away when pulled lightly. He does all his gardening from sitting on the ground as he has MS and doesn't have use of his legs since last year. He leaves his wheelchair at the top of his plot and moves around on his bum. I give him a hand with things occasionally but he manages most of what he needs to do himself, amazing! So he was shaking the trees to get what he couldnt reach and from just a few trees he got several buckets of nuts!
This spurred me to check mine and they were at a similar stage. I only have one tree producing so didn't get as much, but am still really pleased, especially as I didn't actually ever expect to get any nuts (I'd planted for pea sticks)

Here's my harvest about a week or so after picking. I'm writing this Friday on the train to visit my folks for the weekend. On Tuesday most of them had ripened enough to come nicely out of the green cases, leaving a nice tray of nuts to ripen further

Ooh look, there's a little birdie trying to eat my nuts! And a 1p for size comparison.

In Norwich the city council seem to like including Turkey hazels in their planting schemes for housing estates. They do produce nuts but they're a lot smaller than our hazels. I did collect a few one year but they're so small it's too much faff for what you get back. Maybe if I ever get really desperate...

Turkey hazel nut. They're small and flat! Here's one I picked up on the way to the train station. Absolutely loads on the trees but too much effort to hull them as they're so small.

So I think I'll leave mine to ripen a while longer and then maybe try toasting them. And maybe have with melted choc? Mmmm.

Hmm, I've just had a vague memory I might have had one or two nuts on the tree last year. Obviously wasn't much to remember.....I hope the tree continues to improve every year though! And then if I can squeeze another one in, there'd be three altogether (I've got a much smaller one too) so maybe could coppice on rotation to get pea sticks and keep the trees small-ish. Well, will see if I save a couple of nuts to try growing another tree.

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