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The South Marysburgh Mirror GREEN INV - By Robin Reily Go Nuts Sometimes an investment sits stag- nant, year after year, then one year, soars. That also hap- pens with perennial plants. Our bumper crop this year was hazel- nuts. We planted sev- eral shrubs six years ago with only a hand- ful of nuts to show. This year, for two weeks, | was climbing a ladder each day to gather nut clusters. The stock market acronym FOMO is short for Fear Of Missing Out. It refers to the tendency to buy a stock because everyone else is buying i and you don’t want to miss out (e.g., cannabis companies). Last year the nut harvest looked promising but on harvest day we gazed upon mounds of split shells beneath each shrub, with chatter- ing chipmunks seemingly gloating from the adjacent forest. Motivate by FOMO this year, we decided to pick our first bucket of nuts in late August. The easiest ways to collect fully mature hazel nuts is to wait until they drop (a ‘windfall profit’) but we didn’t want to be scooped by chipmunks and blue jays. Precaution got the better of us, as the first nuts were under-developed but the later ones were fine. Next year we will wait a week and share. Hazelnuts, genus Corylus, are members of the Birch family. The resemblance is evident in the long catkins (male pollen tubes) which hang down in late winter. The nuts come in a large European variety (aka filberts) and asmaller American type. The European ones benefit from centuries of breeding but are more frost sensitive. They also suffer from a destructive blight caught from their American cousins. Nut breeders in Niagara and the Finger Lakes have been interbreeding the two 11 TMEN'T — old style factory in Brantford to draw from Ontario and New York new hazelnut farms. If you’d like to invest some time and money in this crop buy several different cultivars. Although hazel nuts have both male and female parts they are not self-fertile, so you need at least two ideally different cultivars for good wind-pollination. Perhaps purchase some cold- tolerant plants with smaller nuts and some with larger nuts pushing the edge of your grow- ing zone. As an added winter precaution plant these shrubs beside a windbreak and deeply mulch the shallow roots. Hazel nuts respond well to pruning. Cutting off any sideways grow- ing shoots at ground level will encourage stronger upright growth. Incidentally, the cuttings are favoured for water dowsing rods. Once harvested, let the nuts sit in the sun for a day and then dry inside for a few weeks. In the shell, the nuts keep for sev- eral months. Once shelled roasting will improve the taste. September is the month when you can feel overwhelmed with ripe vegetables—how nice to be able to grow a protein source that stays fresh until snow falls. If you don’t want to grow your own, you can buy hazel nuts for a couple of dollars or al- ternately, look for ‘deer nuts’ which you'll al- ways find to be under a ‘buck’. beautiful fair trade items handmade, delicious local treats plus everyday grocery items & essentials types to improve cold hardiness and blight re- sistance. Selective breeding and a warming climate now make it fea- sible to grow hazel nuts in southern Ontario. As evidence of this change, Ferrero Roche, the makers of the choco- info.h WOODCRAFT carpentry interior finishing woodwork and fabulous Ice cream com late hazelnut spread ‘Nutella’, have opened a 9 613.503.4853 613-476-6333 31 County Rd. 18