my hazels are finally cropping and they are absoulutley covered with 1in nuts! so much so its bending the branches down. they do take a while to get a crop and you need several different hybrids to get proper pollenization but defintily worth the 5 yr wait once they do. bushes are 7-9ft tall. came from arbor day. believe they partnered with badgersett farms out of MN for these hybrids.
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In years past almost every home had a walnut tree and many had a few pecan trees. The reason was simple. For very little time and care, a food source was there in time of need. The same is true today for anyone willing to put in the time to plant something that will make food for years to come. I am not of the opinion that this applies to fruit that requires many hours per year to get something edible. For example, it is very difficult to grow apples in my climate without quite a bit of spraying. Pears on the other hand can be grown and even though damaged by insects usually produce an abundance of edible fruit. Pick your fruits!
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I think Castanea mentioned them, but I’m surprised that more hasn’t been said about jujubes. Not only are they great fresh (like a smaller (cherry to plum sized), but 1.5-2X as sweet apple with pit rather than a core), but they can be dried and keep almost indefinitely without going bad. What better fruit for rough times? They can also be grown without any pesticides or fungicides, minimizing their inputs.
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I talk about replace a window and suddenly got ads popping up everywhere for windows. They are watching us.
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There–I can agree on that statement. Nut crop improvement studies should be very helpful. Natural selection has not been. But, there is a future for hazel nuts, and especially if smaller plants and disease resistance bring them to the mainstream.
Appreciate the hazels in a can of roasted nuts.
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For the people that live in a good location to grow muscadines they can produce a large amount of calorie dense food and it can be consumed fresh, frozen, or made into jelly/jam. Once established they mostly only require an annual heavy pruning. It is reasonable to expect 50-60 pounds per vine going into their third year.
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@ampersand
The hybrid hazels at my location have been disease resistance trouble free and easy to grow. I don’t have any personal information about their production but I really like the taste of the ones I have purchased. They can be grown in a tree form so they can be protected from squirrels and they can be harvested just before birds start taking them.
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Thanks! I’ll have to chat with the neighbor about planting some on the property line.
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I feel you. As I’ve grown older and more chill about such things, it’s easier to just ignore the noise. It would be nice if the board had an “ignore member” feature like so many other message boards these days. Makes for a far less tense user experience. 
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https://njaes.rutgers.edu/e368/
I found this extremely educational. I’m close enough to NJ that I generally follow Rutgers advice.
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Nice article. I used to harvest native ones…say 50 years ago…but in city locations…most seem to have no pollination…and if they do, the squirrels eat the nuts.
The idea of self-sufficiency is really fantastic, everyone has dreamed of that “beautiful and bucolic life” of self-sufficiency in a small farm, raising chickens and pigs, harvesting a small orchard , bathing naked in the river, and lighting us with a lamps with the wax of our hives.
Really It is a image to take a picture and upload it to facebook.
The idea itself is a true marvel.
But I ask a little question.
The politicians and the system in general bow to citizens not paying taxes?
In a self-sufficient system nothing is paid to the state, and if taxes are not paid, it seems to me that the system is not going to be very in line with self-sufficiency.
Now, if the matter reaches bigger words such as a zombie apocalypse, we would already enter into science fiction fields that are not objective at all.
A clear example of self-sufficiency.
The “rainbow” commune in the Spanish province of La Rioja.
76 police sanctions (financial fines) for trying to lead a “self-sufficient” life.
Gentlemen, we are in a capitalist system that is the only one that works well, and we cannot get out of the system.
Regards
Jose
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Jose, America supposedly is a ‘government of, by, for the people’…in practice you are correct that the practice of collecting money so politicians can redistribute it has become ingrained and any self sufficient scheme they are going to be unamused by.
Folks, the OP used the word “resiliency” not “self sufficiency”. There is a huge difference in the implications.
Resiliency is not an all out nothing thing.
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Maybe the google translator does not translate it well, but by resiliency it translates “resistance”.
Resistance towards what?
We all owe money, we depend on the system for absolutely “everything.”
What to resist, if we are the worker bees of the hive.
Regards
Jose
If people are reading for ideas still, I would suggest patty pan and crookneck squash on the list of vegetables that are the most productive for me. They routinely withstand squash Vine borer far longer than other summer squash I have grown. Zucchini tends to die by August.
Speaking of squash, I personally am a fan of C. moschata types of winter squash. This species includes butternut and cheese wheel types. They are resistant to squash Vine borer. Lots of interesting heirlooms out there. Tetsukabuto is an impressive hybrid, too.
Heck you can combine the two with Tromboncino squash. Eat it in summer like a zucchini, or let it mature into a crookneck type. All winter squash are edible when immature, but some are better than others.
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Translation error - Resilience is the ability to thrive no matter the conditions or the ability to bounce back or recover from stress and harsh conditions or sudden changes
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In this example resiliency refers to being able to continue more or less normally despite outside stress/events. Sometimes this can be taken to the extremes of self sufficiency.
For myself, I am looking for some security in what I view as an uncertain future.
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I find that any winter squash that sends out lots of root from the vines is likely resistant to borers and wilt and for calories over winter I can think of no veg fruit more productive because they don’t even need full sun. I grow them in my fruit tree nursery and as long as I don’t let them climb the small trees they are a virtually no effort crop that produces an insane abundance of food. Of course I’d have to be starving to eat winter squash more than once a week. When I eat it I enjoy it but don’t feel like having it again for a few days at least.
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I have posted before about our grasshopper challenges. We carved our place out of thousands of square miles of range land and have the grasshoppers to prove it. Our small fruit/nut trees didn’t have a chance.
We finally built a coop in the “orchard” and introduced guinea fowl. problem solved. Then we had to shift focus to predator control…D
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