The first hazelnut orchard I ever walked through was in northern Italy, where I spent a summer working on a small family farm. Now, after 8 years, our hazelnuts are starting to produce right here in Vermont!

Hazelnuts grow as multi-stemmed shrubs and are among the first plants to wake each year, releasing pollen from slender catkins in late winter while snow is often still on the ground. The tiny flowers swell over summer into clusters of nuts that ripen and drop in early fall. Our native American hazelnut is tough and cold-hardy but small-nutted; the European hazelnut feature large, flavorful nuts. 

We started our planting from small seedlings sourced from two nurseries who have spent decades on exactly this work: Z's Nutty Ridge, in the Finger Lakes region of New York, whose blight-resistant American–European hybrids are our Finger Lakes genetics; and Grimo Nut Nursery, in Ontario, Canada, which offers the ultra-hardy Saskatchewan lineage bred out of wild prairie hazelnuts growing in the punishing cold of the Canadian plains.

The process of getting delicious hazelnuts doesn't end with the growing. Once the nuts are ripe, harvesting is a race against wildlife! Squirrels, deer, and jays are just a few of the critters that love these wonderful, flavorful nuts. 

After harvesting, the nuts are dried, separated from their husks, sized, and ready to be cracked! We are lucky to have gotten a hold of a Davebilt #43 cracker, and it works amazingly well!

We have last year's small crop and this year's crop in process and available soon! Contact us at info@fullermountainfarm.com for more information.