Racing the Squirrels!

Every year it's a contest to see who gets our produce first - us or the squirrels and raccoons.  The raccoons have a better track record with the grapes than we do.  I'd love to let the grapes go to fully ripe but we'll lose the whole crop if we do that.  Fortunately, the squirrels aren't interested in the grapes but hazelnuts are another matter!

The other day when I was out picking tomatoes with my daughter, we heard a squirrel scolding us.  At the time we thought it was in a nearby fir tree, but today I realized he was in the hazelnuts.  I went right up to the bush and there he was on a branch with the hull in his paws carefully removing the nut - not bothered by me at all!  Of course by the time I came back with a camera he was gone.  Now we don't begrudge the squirrels a nut or two.  Our little guys are the native ones and the big invasive greys and blacks haven't made it to our little island yet.  We are happy to let them share the sunflower feeder with the birds and even to have a few nuts.  But enough is enough!

When we started harvesting this year, there were signs on the ground that the squirrels have had more than their fare share!  Lots of empty husks!

This year's hazelnut crop is a good one.  We only have 2 mature bushes bearing nuts and 2 young bushes just about ready to start. And the young ones have Perigord truffle spores at their roots!  One mature bush is a heavy producer.  It's smaller but always loaded with nuts in clusters.  The other bush is huge but bears very few nuts although the nuts it does produce are very big.  This year it has a good crop, too.

Hazelnuts are not the easiest to see in the bushes.  The clusters appear near the end of the branches on the undersides and tend to blend in very well.  It took a good half hour with our relatively small bushes to get most of the crop.  My husband pulled down the branches for me to strip.  Once we got most of the clusters off the bushes we extracted the nuts from their husks.

I think this is the best crop we've had so far from our hazelnuts.  We'll allow them to air dry in the house for a few weeks before they're ready to eat.  And I'm sure there are still some up there to keep the squirrels happy.

Hazelnuts

Every year at harvest time, it's a battle against the critters to bring in some of our favourite crops.  In the nearly 16 years we've been tending a grapevine that produces wonderful little seedless grapes, we've only managed to beat the raccoons twice.  It seems that a day or two before I judge the grapes are ready for picking, I'll head out in the morning ready to pick and find - none.

It's much the same with the hazelnuts, although I've had better luck there.  It's easiest to just let the nuts fall and gather them from the ground.  This doesn't work here.  In the past, I was squeezing the ripening nuts from their husks and getting most of the harvest.  I don't mind losing a nut or two to our little native red squirrels as they're not hugely greedy.  Last year, however, I got nothing.   This greedy predator is the raccoon.  They can also do a lot of damage as they break the more slender branches as they strip the bushes.

This morning I went out to see how the hazelnuts are coming along and discovered several bunches on the ground, some with nuts still in and others empty.  Time to pick!

Hazelnut hiding under a branch

The nuts aren't that easy to see.  Encased in husks that are the same colour as the leaves, you can only see them from below.  Branches must be lifted up and the tops of the bushes have to be pulled down to get at the nuts.  We pulled them off, husks and all.

2014 harvest

We have four bushes.  One produces heavily, another is a lot bigger, produces very few nuts and the other two are young and not in production yet.  They have Perigord truffle spores inoculated in their roots!  I hesitate to take out the unproductive bush because perhaps you need a couple of varieties for pollination.  From mainly the one bush, we harvested a basket of nuts in their husks.  There are probably a few nuts still in the bush, but the squirrels are welcome to them.

Hazelnuts drying on a tray

We spread the nuts on a tray in the potting shed to dry.  Some of the nuts are ripe already and have fallen from the husks.  Hopefully the little mouse who helped himself to my corn seeds has moved to more a productive location and will leave the hazelnuts alone!