In the Orchard

Harvest time is nearly here at Hazelnut Hill. We’re anxiously watching our 800 acres of hazelnut trees, watching for them to drop their “blanks” to signal that it’s nearly time to sweep.

In the meantime, there’s plenty to do. Visitors often marvel at the ‘clean floor’ of our orchards and in fact, we actually do sweep and clean our grounds. This practice helps discourage mold spores or any other unwelcome growth. The other reason is also practical: after we sweep them up, we send our nuts to a local processor where the pay for them to be cleaned, shelled and pasteurized. That means that if there are stones or sticks in our shipment, we pay for really clean stones and sticks.