OT: Growing nuts in the north

[Kelby]

I thought some of you might be interested in these free ebooks called Growing Nuts in the North by Carl Weschcke and Nut Growing Ontario Style by John Gordon. Some neat info in them, not just on nuts for the 2nd link.

Someday if I get more land I'd like to try growing nuts. 1/3 acre is not room enough for nut trees! Perhaps some of the new disease resistance hazelnuts are in my future though. There's been some neat work with them as a crop to feed the planet.

Have a good day!

[jkuo]

Heh, until I clicked through, I wasn't sure whether that title was about crazy people who grow in the north or about growing trees.

[F. Bennett]

Ha! At a glance I saw the same thing...'going nuts'... sorry to derail, Kelby.

[Kelby]

Hah! That's funny, I didn't even see that.

[Dale_M]

Thanks!

[jkuo]

I briefly thought about growing hazelnuts. But then I remembered those pesky tree rats.

[Chrisk]

Well ,I thought about quite a few times but I can't seam to find the courage to stand up to her! Mrs K scares the life out of me some times.....oh sorry out of topic)

[Pino]

Kelby,
Thanks for the informative links!
Hazelnuts tend to want to grow as bushes. So you may be able to manage the space they require. They are also real easy to layer.
I planted a bunch of hazelnuts, sweet walnuts, almond and chestnuts in 1998 and they all grew nice and produced delicious nuts for years. Unfortunately the last 3 years blight seems to have moved in due to cool wet spring and summers and now I have a battle on my hands.

[Kelby]

My long term dream is to replace the arborvitae hedge along the back of my property with a hazelnut hedge. Too bad the arborvitae are just barely on the neighbors property. The hedge is probably 40 years old, there when we moved in, so it's starting to fall apart. Every winter a few more come down, now it's just a waiting game.

[zone5figger]

I've been growing hazelnuts for 5 years, and I'm glad I planted them. They've produced nuts the last 2 years, and put on a show with their beautiful fall foliage colors. Mine came from St. Lawrence. I've subsequently ordered others from Badgersett, these came as very small seedlings 2 years ago and still more from another nursery, Oikos. I wanted some diversity, but all are blight resistant-an important feature if growing in the east. They would make a great hedge planted on 4-6' centers, they would fill in nicely; mine sucker quite a bit. The nice thing about hazels is that they come into bearing quickly in comparison to other nut crops. I've tried layering mine w/o success, even after two years. Suckers, root cuttings are probably the easiest way to go for making more plants, I've also planted the nuts and have some small seedlings of my own to plant out this spring.
I've been wanting to get some chestnuts going here for a couple years, and was considering ordering them from Badgersett, but I didn't like the fact that most of their orders are shipped in the summer time, so I've held off. I got some sizable hybrid chestnut seeds from NY state, and have them stratifying down cellar-just noticed them starting to chit last week. These will be planted in-ground in a nursery bed for a season or two before moving to permanent locations.
Butternut trees are locally native here, and I've planted a few buarnut(heartnut/butternut hybrid) as part of a hedgerow I'm developing, maybe in another 10 years I'll get to try some nuts off those!

[Kelby]

How much does a hazelnut bush produce, out of curiosity?

Also, I can send you seeds from a chestnut tree next door (beats me on species, though I suspect American which is unlikely) if you want them in the fall. It's pretty old.

[zone5figger]

Last year my five fourth leaf hazelnuts produced about a half gallon of unshelled nuts.

[Kelby]

Good info, thanks!

[Beyondista]

The overstory species in our forest garden is chestnuts and buartnuts (butternut x heartnuts). We also have 10-15 different varieties of hazels, trazels, hazelburts etc. Hardy Pecans and Carpathian walnuts, black walnuts, in smaller numbers... Carl Weschcke lived about 50 miles from here, I've always wanted to locate his old place and see if there was anything standing still. John Gordon was a very generous nurseryman, he would always send me twice the amount of seed I ordered from him ....

[zone5figger]

Nice assortment; are you getting much from them yet, and are any more successful for you than others?

[Harborseal]

I've been growing hazelnuts for 5 years, and I'm glad I planted them. They've produced nuts the last 2 years, and put on a show with their beautiful fall foliage colors. ...

Are you growing American Hazelnuts or the hybrids they grow in Oregon?

[zone5figger]

The first set I ordered were hazelberts from St. Lawrence Nursery, they are blight resistant which I need for my location.

[71GTO]

How susceptible are hazelnuts to blight? I know someone who has some hazelnut trees brought from Italy. I don't know if that makes them any different then what you can buy here. I'm assuming they are not blight resistant...

[COGardener]

I understand that Walnuts do well in my area, though I don't think I've seen one. I do plan to plant a few when I move, hopefully they do well.

[cis4elk]

OT here:
Scott, do you have problems with Canker on your stone fruits? I never had it on a tree before before last year, it's a problem on my 4th year peach tree. I might have to cut it down and dig out the root if the tree doesn't bloom this year and it looks to me like most of the wood that will bear blossoms is dead again. So far my older white nectarine seems to be dealing with it and my cherry tree doesn't really seem affected.