Hazelnuts, when do you pick, and how do you store 'em?

Hazelnuts, how do I get a harvest I can keep until Chrismas?

I know what the books say, pick 'em when they start to change colour.  But, that's a fortnight away.  Instead, here is what normally happens.  We carefully watch our nuts get fat and test a few each day to see how the nuts are tasting.   We say to each other, if the weather keeps on like this, we will get a hearty nut harvest in about a week.

And by morning, it seems like there is about 10% fewer nuts.  Nothing on the ground.

And within 24 hours, all the remaining nuts will be gone.  Green, no shells, not evidence.   Just gone.

So someone thinks they are ripe.

Today.

A whole bunch are gone from yesterday. 8 of a dozen trees completely stripped of nuts!

So I'm gathering green nuts and they taste pleasant, they aren't ripe.

Not sure how to mature them yet,  just came in for a cuppa tea and to start off this conversation.   For those of you with nut expierence, when do you harvest and what do you do with them to help them last to Christmas feast?

I have no idea how to pick them for storing, but I suggest the most likely harvester is a squirrel, but recently, I've had evidence of rats climbing trees to harvest also.

This definitely needs more research in the Pacific North Wet, as one year when I thought I was picking them properly, when I dried and then tried to open them late in the fall, they were all empty.

It's always a different harvester for us.

Some years squirls, but they tend to take a week or three to eat this many nuts.  They always sort of hover in the background and a good way to tell when the nuts are ready.

Often it's crows.  We never get crows here, but once a year, about 3 or 4 am, for an hour, and all the nuts are gone.

Sometimes it's ravens, raccoons, and other harvesters.  

Last year, we picked some when the squirl started, they were all empty come Christmas.  It was very sad.  

r ransom wrote: Last year, we picked some when the squirl started, they were all empty come Christmas.  It was very sad.  

I think I read somewhere that if they aren't shelled shortly after picking, the nuts get reabsorbed into the remaining plant material around the nut. It didn't exactly make sense to me when I read it, and at this stage, I have no idea where I read it.

I do think more research needs to be done. My understanding is that Hazelnuts were a major food source for ancient British humans - so there has to be a way!

Isn't it just that the non-human harvesters are really adept at picking out the good nuts, and leave behind all the empty ones? It wouldn't really make sense for the nuts to reabsorb all the seeds that weren't eaten... If they did that, what seeds would germinate?

I read somewhere (possibly somewhere on here?) about a nut grower using squirrels as a work force, by placing buckets full of sawdust around his trees. The squirrels would harvest all the good nuts and bury most of them in the sawdust, and then the grower would take them, and leave some corn as payment for the squirrels.

Otherwise, it's probably very location dependent. The only time I have personally harvested any good amount of hazelnuts, it was in this weird and wonderful place that had a forest of hazel, elm and oak, which feels somewhat exotic to me, right next to mountains too high and barren for any trees at all. The nuts were all on the ground, brown and ripe, not even bug-infested as far as I remember, and there were lots of them. The area does have most of the critters mentioned, definitely squirrels, crows and ravens at least, so it definitely is possible to get a good harvest despite these. No idea what actually makes the difference though.

All i know is the unwanted harvesters take all the nuts, usually in an hour or two timespan.  We have almost two dozen trees coming to maturity, it's a lot of nuts to go missing in one day.

The thing is, the nuts are there when green, but gone by Christmas.   Right now we are getting 14 out of 15 with nuts in them.

I like the idea of getting squirls to help.  They are useful for chestnuts and if you can get them angry enough, will hearl the biggest ones at us from the highest branch.

I wonder if shelling, roasting, then freezing is an option?

I'm also hoping for a good mast year this year. The trees I planted have quite a lot of nuts on at the moment - it will be into September before they are ripe though, so I must not optimate.

r ransom wrote:I wonder if shelling, roasting, then freezing is an option?

I'm pretty sure they are supposed to keep longer in their shells than out of them.

I also think they keep better if they have been dried properly (which might involve heat?)

If you are shelling and freezing them, I don't know if they need roasting too.

I've got some nuts I harvested last year that I dried in a cool oven, shelled (lots of empty ones ), and put in a glass jar with a lid and they are still fine to eat.

Dehydrator in the shell?

I haven't observed the hazels as closely as R, but other than having less specific knowledge, my experience is the same. I can harvest them green but I have *never* gotten a ripe hazel from our woods.

I am new to hazelnuts.  I have four bushes out back, and last year was the first nut-bearing year for two of the plants.  I read everything I could get my hands on and watched many videos to boot.  I learned that I should wait until I can move the nut inside the papery wrapping.  Once I can do that it's ripe enough.  Then, I could pull off the clusters and separate the nuts from their wrapping.  From there I just put the nuts in a bowl to have when I wanted some.  I probably only got about two cups of nuts, but they all were full and delicious.  I ate the last of them in early June and they were just fine.  

Being that they just started to produce, I'm worried that the squirrels just weren't aware of them being there yet.  It may be a completely different story this year.  I am growing them mainly so that I can make some nutella; hopefully, I'll have enough for a batch or two!  I also have two heartnut trees started out back.  I'm hoping that between the six plants, I'll have some for me.  I hope to use those in pesto in place of purchased walnuts or pine nuts.  For a while I considered growing pine nuts, but the trees don't produce for many, many years, and I'm 65, so....heart nuts seemed like the better option.

The only thing I have to add to this discussion (well, two things) is 1. I've read that if you put the (presumably ripe) nuts in a bucket of water, the full ones will sink and the empty ones will float. Worth a try, anyway.  And 2. There are huge commercial orchards raising filberts/hazelnuts. There must be a website or forum somewhere with the information you all are looking for? If nothing else, maybe Burnt Ridge Nursery has a website where people can ask questions? Or maybe someone lives close enough to the nursery to go and ask in person? Because I know they sell filbert/hazelnut trees.

As for nut thieves: the Jays "harvest" my 2 trees before fully ripe (ripe brown and easy to roll out of the green cover). I have lots of new hazel trees throughout my orchard and in the loaving shed due to Jays planting them. I have been re-planting them mostly in my developing hedge rows.

As to ripeness, i gather the ones the jays drop to the ground as soon as I can otherwise mice and voles are WAY too well fed. These ones that have started to brown seem to not shrink into nothingness, but I know of what you speak: I've had that happen with ones i've picked earlier than the Jays (thinking I would beat them to the harvest; HA!)  I dry them on my soil sifting racks (hardware cloth on a wooden frame), covered by another sifter so the mice and jays don't steal them from the loafing shed. I rub off the husk when they are dry and then store them in a moderately heat/cool tempered room (I don't have a commonly temp-controlled room as I live rather primatively).  I've had some of them for a couple years before shelling and the majority are still tasty, solid nuts.

I long to learn how others keep the jays off: I don't mind sharing my various harvests, but I do want a sizeable portion of my goodies.

   These images on Google photos don't seem to show up correctly; sorry

when we were doing "commercial" harvesting of them, some of the other growers would have a helicopter fly over and rattle them with their wind from flying. they were not considered ready until the tree dropped them. the machine we picked them up with was a huge beast that vacuumed up everything and had a space between the exit chute and the tote on a trailer that heavier things would drop out of the exit wind-stream, before the tote, and lighter stuff would somewhat go past, but it wasn't the best option for getting the "dud" out. if you are "picking them off of the tree/bush - then they are probably not ready. usually after labor day here in PNW. they got dried in the shell at the commercial buyers.
we would usually save a couple hundred pound for ourselves, shell them  and roast them, often with seasoning flavorings. shelling them without drying them, of course, the roasting handled that.
a quick way to check for good versus duds is to (out of the husk) float them. duds will float. good ones will sink.
hope that helps, although I don't know what (lots of options) is harvesting ahead of you. trail cam might help, then appropriate action could p[possibly be taken.

We've always gathered hazelnuts after they fall to the ground and have more than I know what to do with, especially with a nut allergy in our family. I often end up tossing handfuls into the pig bucket to use them up. We've never had any wildlife harvest any because they are near the center of our property and our dogs keep deer, squirrels etc away. I will have to watch this year though since we experimented with no free-ranging poultry for the year and instead we have a lot of cow birds and crows that hang with our cattle daily. Hopefully the crows won't get them all!

Jay Angler wrote:I have no idea how to pick them for storing, but I suggest the most likely harvester is a squirrel, but recently, I've had evidence of rats climbing trees to harvest also.

This definitely needs more research in the Pacific North Wet, as one year when I thought I was picking them properly, when I dried and then tried to open them late in the fall, they were all empty.

Thanks for the warning. I don't think there are squirrels at the allotment garden, where my hazelnut tree is, but there are rats! I never thought of rats climbing trees, but of course they can (they climb in ships, buildings, etc.)

Edit to add: there are crows and (European) jays here too ...

Barbara Simoes wrote:I am new to hazelnuts.  I have four bushes out back, and last year was the first nut-bearing year for two of the plants.  I read everything I could get my hands on and watched many videos to boot.  I learned that I should wait until I can move the nut inside the papery wrapping.  Once I can do that it's ripe enough.  Then, I could pull off the clusters and separate the nuts from their wrapping.  From there I just put the nuts in a bowl to have when I wanted some.  I probably only got about two cups of nuts, but they all were full and delicious.  I ate the last of them in early June and they were just fine.  
...

For me this year will be the first year with a few hazelnuts. When I first rented that allotment garden a few years ago, the small young tree was there already. But now I saw some nuts growing. This week I'll try some if they are ripe (as you describe: if they can be separated from their wrapping).

After reading this post, I went to check on the hazelnut bush outside my door, which I had noticed had a couple nuts on it this year. A couple years ago I got a decent clutch of nuts from this bush, which is kinda crouched under a grafted persimmon tree, as well as right outside my door, so the squirrels had overlooked it. I don't think they wait for nuts to be fully ripe, judging from the way they strip my fruit trees a good six weeks before the fruit is ripe.
I found the nut had a little brown on the husk, and it popped out of the husk readily, so I picked and shelled all the rest--I kept finding more. I didn't think they were ready this early, so I'm glad I saw this post.

Still not ripe...



but looking good!

A friend was so intrigued by my hazels that she wanted a few nuts to try and start her own. She had a tree and talked me into getting a hazelnut for myself! My trees had a good crop so I didn't think there would be any problem, but when I went out to check on the mulberries nearby, I realized that all of the nuts were gone! Shells littered the ground...grrr! After much searching, I was able to locate maybe four nuts, which were still kind of white, like in Nancy's picture, but I had no choice, so I picked them for my friend to plant.  Interestingly, as they sat on my kitchen counter for a few weeks, they progressively darkened...I don't know what was going on inside the nut, but it would make an interesting experiment.  

I have about 100 hazelnut bushes. Many of them don't produce much or any nuts at all.
From Mark Shepard's plants.
They don't look like the ones in Nancy Reading's post above.
The seeds don't stick out of the fringlike husk so far.

I pull the fringe apart and push the nut to the side to see if it breaks loose easily.
That way I know it will be easy to remove it from the husk.

I got my biggest harvest ever this year.
 Almost 4 buckets of husked nuts. That might keep me in hazelnut butter and jelly sandwiches for a year.
Only got one bucket last year but usually get 2 buckets a year.
  The plants are bigger.
  Got rid of a few of ground hogs, racoons and a squirrels before the harvest.
  and I got started early picking them up.
When I saw the squirrels start leaving husks around. I grabbed a bucket and picked up ones that had dropped and those on the bushes that looked ready.
The harvest was stretched out this year. They didn't ripen at the same time. That was kind of a good thing.
I also use a soil sifting rack like Barbera. Mine is about 3' x 6'. It can hold one bucket of nuts with space to dry.
2 buckets has them packed together a little too tight to dry quick.
I don't have a good place to dry all of them at the same time.
They usually sit on the rack for a day before I start husking them.

Takes about 3 buckets with husks to make one bucket with shells.
Seems like a bucket with shells weighs about 25 lbs and will make close to 15 lbs of nuts when removed from the shell.

If I store them in a 5-gallon bucket, the bottom ones will get musty/moldy on the outside of the shell.
I can't put a lid on the bucket but might put a screen on them this year, to keep mice out.
I need to pour them from one bucket to another every once in a while to move the bottom ones to the top and aid in drying.

craig howard wrote: They don't look like the ones in Nancy Reading's post above.
The seeds don't stick out of the fringlike husk so far.

Mine are UK hazelnuts, which I believe are slghtly different to North American hazelnuts. We also get what I would call cobnuts perhaps that have the nut more covered. The photo above is slightly over exposed which makes the nuts look paler than they are, which is still quite greenish. Sometimes they get a pinkish tinge when exposed to the light before they ripen.

Likely the UK ones are filberts, which are related to hazelnuts but not the same species. The Arbor Foundation had a project to cross the two, because filberts are much bigger--both the plant and the nut--than American hazelnuts, but are susceptible to Eastern Hazelnut Blight when grown in the US. Most production in the US is in the Pacific Northwest, and they're growing filberts. My neighbor coordinated orders for 40 of the crosses which were supposed to have the size of the filberts but with the blight resistance of the natives--perhaps they were released too soon, because few of them even survived, I have one of the survivors, a Jefferson, many years later and it's like 12' tall, many trunked, but has yet to produce a nut. I once planted a native next to it in hopes of cross pollination but it sickened and died just like the other crosses that were originally supposed to be the Jefferson's companions.