My bushes were loaded this year, 10 gallons of unhusked nuts, and that after some chipmunks thinned them. I think hazels are the way to go for growing nuts in the north, these started bearing after 4 yrs. I have plants from a few different sources, all seedlings, so there is quite a bit of variation in nut size. All are supposedly blight resistant or immune, an important factor in the northeast. We will be enjoying cracking these this winter by the woodstove…
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Hey, good for you 
We have a few here, but pollination is still an issue.
Some catkins get frosted and don’t shed, and some female flowers don’t like the available pollen.
I’m trying a beaked hazel planted right next to a het3, as beaked can set nuts on pure het pollen…it will be fun to see if they can set nuts on hybrid het crossed european.
Seedlings are such fun, you never know what you are getting till they bear.
Hope you have some nice ones.
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Fantastic and my favorite nut! Those are great! Congrats.
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When did you first plant them, Jesse? I’ve likewise been very impressed with how trouble-free and reliable my American hazelnuts are, and they taste great.
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I LOVE hazels!
But the squirrels …
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My first planting was in 2010, 5 ‘hazelbert’ bushes from St Lawrence nursery. I followed those up the next couple years with Oikos ‘Precocious’ Hazelnut and Badgersett hybrid plantings, now up to a couple dozen bushes. Most of my harvest comes from the original 5, just getting a light first crops for the rest.
I will most likely plant out the many of this year’s harvest in my nursery, using the largest nuts next spring after stratification in a buried bucket.
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Squirrels and chipmunksee are really pesky with these, they started thinning my crop a month before they ripened. A pile of husks under the bushes told me it was time to get out the havaheart trap.
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With an outside dog and having planted my first three bushes a pretty good distance from the nearest woods/large trees, I haven’t had any trouble at all from squirrels on my hazelnuts yet.
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Congratulations Jesse! I just planted Jefferson, York, and Theta this year so looks like I will have to wait awhile before I have any. I’m surprised at how trouble free they have been as of now.
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Squirrels here keep burying hazelnuts in my planter boxes so I have over a dozen seedlings in my backyard.
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This is not about harvest but do you grow your filberts as a single trunk tree or as a bush with several trunks. Any advantages/disadvantages with either method?
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Bill, I think with the European hazelnuts like you said you’re growing one could train them to a single trunk or let them form more of a bush, but with the American hazelnuts (and I assume the hybrids, too) I think a bush is about the only way to grow them.
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I have heard of people "training " squirrels to harvest nuts by leaving sawdust filled buckets around the nut tree, the squirrels will fill em up for you! Maybe next year?
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Mine are multi stemmed shrubs, getting around 10’ tall with 5-9 stems a piece. I think that’s just the way they want to grow.
I suppose if they were single stemmed, a squirrel baffle would be possible…but think that form is what euro and Turkish hazel are known for.
Iplan to coppice some of them next spring back to ground level, others I will selectively thin out the oldest stems, aiming to replace them completely every 6 yrs or so.
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i have 2 6 yr olds and a couple 2 year old in the middle of my lawn. only 1 of my 6 yr. old bears nuts and its half the size of my best bush which this year didn’t set any at all. mine came from arbor day. so far the squirrels haven’t gotten to these but they have already stripped the wild beaked hazels all around my property.
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These would make a great nut hedge, dense growing and they have really nice color in the fall for ornamental and edible value.
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jesse do you cut back the suckers on yours or let them grow into a hedge?
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So far, I have just let them grow, they mostly suckered from the crown and I plan to use the new shoots to replace the older ones.
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mine keep getting whole branches that just mysteriously die all at once. very weird. doesn’t affect the rest of the bush but then lots of suckers come up. ill let them grow out instead of cutting them all. i get good sized nuts on mine . not sure if these are blight immune. think they’re pure americans. i want to get some hybrids someday.
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I had a bit of dieback on a couple of my older bushes, and a few catkins looked like they got frosted out, kind of mysterious given our mild winter.
A neat article on growing them in Maine-
http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Fall2012/Hazelnuts/tabid/2279/Default.aspx
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