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.
