We face several challenges in the process of converting the hay field into a permaculture nut orchard. These challenges also represent an opportunity for us to make mistakes. We hope our mistakes help other people learn so their process of orchard establishment is easier!
- Distance. While we’re starting the orchard in Spencer, we actually live in Rochester, NY. That’s an hour and a half commute!
- Time. We have two delightful kiddos, both under the age of two. They’re really fussy about things like eating every day and having a roof over their heads, so we have to hold down jobs during the orchard’s establishment.
- Money. As fun as it would be to have infinite money, we don’t! We can make investments in this project every year, but some things will need to be on hold, and those things are listed below.
- Irrigation. Best practices from the Hazelnut and Chestnut Handbook (by Jeff and Dawn Zarnowski, listed on our sources page) suggest that drip irrigation should be run with your hazelnuts and chestnuts for best results. The hay field does not have running water, so we’d need something installed if we were to get that going.
- Fencing. For best results, we should install a fence around the orchard. We’re not sure if it’s strictly speaking necessary for what we’re trying to do, but it likely will be necessary if/when this orchard becomes a genuine business.
- Fertilizer. Fertilizing the hazelnuts would be beneficial, but this endeavor is a hobby for us. We don’t have the equipment or the budget for regular fertilization of an entire field of hazels.
- Plants! The most exciting part of all of this is also one of the biggest challenges. While it would be fun to just buy a million hazelnuts with pristine genetics and start harvesting, it’s not in the budget and it’s not advisable to do all that without perfecting your strategy (which you can tell that we have not done even in the slightest!)
Despite all this, there’s plenty of reason to be hopeful! Check out our next post to learn about hazelnut resilience in the face of a difficult environment.
Interested in the books we mentioned? Interested in other books we didn’t mention? Check out our sources page for the book mentioned in this article and many more books that we find super handy!
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