TGIF everybody!
It has been raining at our place.
Not the kind of rain that stereotypes the Pacific Northwest. We haven’t seen that kind of rain since early June.
This week, it has been raining nuts. Lots of them. Filberts here. Filberts there. Filberts everywhere.
Filberts – aka Hazelnuts.
We just completed our first of two harvests so I thought I’d share a few pictures to answer that age-old question….
“So, just how DO you harvest a nut?”
Well, we slap a hard hat on Joey, give him a bucket and a peanut butter sandwich and send him on his way to pick those nuts up. One by one. Acre by acre. Shaking each tree as he goes.
Ok, maybe I’m not completely accurate.
Let’s start over…
Once enough nuts have fallen and are ready to harvest, the first step is to sweep the orchard floor and push everything – debris, nuts, etc.. into a long pile that runs the length of each orchard aisle.
Then, using one of these crates…
The pile is sucked into the conveyor as it drives over the nuts and debris…
…and then the “cool” part begins.
The conveyor separates the nuts from the debris by rolling the nuts into the crate and shooting the debris out to the side.
By the time the harvest is complete, these crates, and more, will be filled with filberts and ready to be processed.
We are expecting about 60,000 pounds this year.
That is a whole-lotta-nuts.
But wait!
There’s more!
Yep – we will now wait for the remainder of the nuts to fall and do another harvest all over again. Most likely in about two weeks.
These turkeys are just waiting for the leftovers!
Did you know Oregon produces 99% of all filberts in the United States?
Who knows, when you are doing your holiday baking this year, you might just be using a hazelnut from our property
!
Be sure to let me know how it tasted!
Be inspired,
Turning lifetime passion into livelihood. It's about time! I'm Shari. I am a 40-something wife, mother, corporate professional turned design stylist, avid sports fan, and usually exhausted 24/7 keeping up with it all. I love my family, my home, my work...and the chaos that comes with it. I also happen to adore my beagle, Scout. 
Very interesting to see how those are harvested.
Now that is just too cool. I’ve never had a hazelnut, but I definitely will now! Have a great weekend!
Interesting. Thanks for posting. Will have to buy some hazelnut and impress my child that I know how they are harvested in turn teaching him too. Happy Harvesting~Jen
This so great, I would be in heaven I love filberts. They are so great to bake with. Lovely pictures, the pheasant was great.
Cynthia
My husband would love this post. He likes to watch all those shows on tv about how stuff is done then tell me about it. Now I can be a nut harvest genius. Very interesting.
Bliss
When I was a kid in Oregon, we actually DID pick the nuts up by hand. We had friends with an orchard and were paid by the 5-gallon bucketful. Hey, it was a way to make money! We also picked pole beans, cucumbers, strawberries, Marion berries and raspberries.