Autumn riches

The variety of produce that continues to come into our orbit makes me feel very rich to live here. Our climate here is pretty perfect for growing Chestnuts and Hazelnuts and both of these are now dropping their amazing booty on the ground. Despite the clouds of white cockatoos that have been visiting the trees over the last couple of months, there are still too many Hazelnuts to be harvested by our neighbours alone. Thus we (Our very talented WOOFers and myself + small child) decided to give them a hand.

One of the Hazelnut varieties available

With buckets in hand we sat, kneeld, crawled, squatted and reclined amongst the dark soil, leaf litter and abundant fungi while deftly picking up whole, bright new seasons nuts. There are many varieties of Hazelnuts and we could recognise at least 5. This year with all the rain and lack of heat has been great for these Hazelnut trees and the nuts are full and sweet.

This variety has a large wide nut

The taste of the nuts in this fresh state is quite refreshing but to store them longer term (up to 2 years) the nuts must be dried.

Adding nuts to the drying racks

Luckily it is cold enough at night here to warrant a fire so with a bit of adaptation we managed to throw together some drying racks around out heater.

The bigger picture

According to our neighbour they may take about a week to dry, so we are still in the process of seeing how long it takes. The first hazelnut dessert is currently being planned!