sutton023

We've been wondering all year if we would get a real chestnut harvest this year, or not- since the abnormally cold spring led our trees here in Minnesota to flower about 2 weeks late. The trees have made up their minds though, and their answer is YES - This is T-401-S in flower (and Eleanor beneath) - and all those flower did indeed turn into chestnuts, currently loading the branches heavily. This tree has had the chestnut blight for 5 years- see how poorly it's doing?  No?  You're correct- it doesn't care.  Even though there is a large basal canker; you simply can't see anything from a distance.  I photograph the cankers each year- and keep worrying they'll win the battle one day; but so far - the tree is winning; and making nut crops to boot. That's Anastasia posing under the tree, our pony mule; the horses were too busy eating grass- and pruning chestnut limbs; to come when I called just now. Something that's not only interesting- but important; the s...

The horses here are now an established part of the operation.  They do tremendous - skilled - mowing, pruning, and brush clearing for us; in both the hazels and chestnuts.  They're almost the only reason we CAN harvest chestnuts these days; if we had to mow and clear by machine and hand, we'd never get it done.  Seriously; we've tried.  Yes, you have to manage moveable fence; get them water, and manage them off season- but the work is considerably less than the money and time needed to use machines. Plus; horses reproduce; tractors don't.  That was one of the original arguments back when tractors were replacing horses as primary tillage technology- but it was pushed off by- cheap fossil fuels, subsidizing manufacture and the entire system.  Yes, yes, fracking has solved our peak oil problems- until, of course, it doesn't.  Meantime- there is a human and natural benefit to the horses.  Tractors, with very few exceptions, do not totter up to you and...

A long time in the making, we are now ready to open our Amazing Hazel Maze for the month of October. The season has been good enough for our chestnuts that we have some available for pick-your-own for the first time as well- definitely exciting to pick that food out of the leaves on the ground! Below is the note we just sent out to our email list. For directions, check the "About Badgersett" page on the main web site We hope to see you here, and we'll post more details here as we can. This Sunday October 7, and the remaining Saturdays and Sundays in October, from 1PM-5PM. Hello folks, This is a quick note going out to our "nearby" friends from us here at Badgersett– this Sunday we will be opening our hazel maze for the first time, and we'll have pick-your-own chestnuts available for the first time ever as well!  The maze will be open for the rest of the weekends in October, but chestnut harvest is tapering off and they are likely to be harder to get, and ma...

In spite of everything Mom Nature has thrown at us this year, (starting with an actual tornado ), Badgersett will be getting chestnuts shipped out to our customers in time for Thanksgiving. We'll be shipping the first orders out tomorrow, Nov. 16; later than our usual target date of Nov. 10. We delayed shipping for the extra days to allow the chestnuts' flavor to develop further; because of the extraordinary harvest weather- temperatures well above normal for us, and high winds, day after day, the "curing" process we put our chestnuts through simply took longer than usual. We didn't want customers to be disappointed with nuts less flavorful than they're used to. Chestnuts fresh off the tree taste bland- little sweetness or complexity. Genetics does make a difference in flavor; and we've got the best there- but the other factors involved in bringing a chestnut to peak mouth and stomach joy require time, and knowing the secrets. One of the secrets ...

A comment from the previous post- my answer started getting long, and it dawned on me it would work best as a post- "Hello, my name is Elinor . I am a farmer from MN and today I read this article. http://www.allaboutfeed.net/news/chestnuts-for-cattle-feed-12326.html "This story fascinated me! I wanted to learn more about chesnuts and see if there were any growers in Minnesota. "What do you folks do with leftover chesnuts? Hello Elinor, and welcome. Many thanks for the link to the chestnut fed beef story, we'd missed that. After googling it, I can see why; as far as I can tell there's only one farm selling it right now- and they're in Australia. The farm in Florida is just feeling their way into it. Reading as much as I could on the Titania Farm beef; they mention having to learn how to feed it to the cows, which concerns me slightly. The well known problem of cattle eating acorns is a major reason we have not tried it; while acorn poisoning in cattle ...

We have a new aspect to the chestnut harvest: the Armor Warning Flag is flying today. If you have to be among the chestnut trees, for harvest or any other reason- you really better be wearing armor; head, face, shoulders, legs, feet and hands. The trees are throwing bombs, all over. The high winds are not funny for us, at all; particularly combined with this record hot spell; it's making the chestnuts ripen all at once, drop fast, messily, with leaves and burrs hiding them, and subject to rapid drying (which is NOT good for chestnuts) from the wind and hot sun. So, we're trying to pick up nuts working just on the north sides of the trees; away from their target areas, today. Can't afford to just not pick them up; we need them for all the reasons there are. The good press bit: today, Oct. 7, the Rochester Post Bulletin is running two stories on neohybrid hazels, that are nicely complementary. Take a look- if you go on line, you'll need a subscription to see the e...

The weather has been weird all year- and while it hasn't been urgent for the tree crops before; the heavy rains early, record heat later, record dry September, early frosts- all have been tolerated well; we're getting slammed now by - again, near record heat; and high winds. The chestnuts in particular, ripen and drop rapidly when the temperature hits 80° in October. It always does, and is usually welcome, to get the crop in. Right now, though, we've got a string of 80° days; and a wind warning up for tomorrow. That's not only going to have the trees throwing nuts far from the normal drop area; it's going to be ripping off leaves and burrs, making the harvest all the more tricky. So- we're in "max" harvest mode; dark to dark. Not much time for anything else for the next few days.

We've machine picked the hazels here in Minnesota for the second time; one week after the first picking, and the results were again- better than anticipated. Many bushes which refused to be picked the first time, were very successfully machine picked on the second pass. Right at the moment, though, our next emergency has arrived. We work with two other crops here, as not too many folks realize; chestnuts and hickory hybrids are also quite important to us. Because of the rather strange growing season, we've been unsure until quite recently whether we would get any chestnut crop this year or not. They flowered extremely late, in mid July, and developed slowly, as from extreme heat we shifted to cool drought. All these nut crops have the ability to alter their ripening behavior, from year to year. This year, the chestnuts have decided to all ripen at once; early and late varieties; and in a hurry; many of the nuts now dropping are not fully colored. Then, today- we...

The First Minnesota Machine Harvest of hazels went well; we estimate about 20 hard-core hazel growers came to see and investigate, as well as neighbors and folks who were "just interested. As we use the machine to pick here on Badgersett Farm itself, it dawns on us more and more- the world has changed. We will certainly be harvesting twice as many hazelnuts this year as last; at least, even with many nuts still left on bushes that refuse to be picked. Part of what that means is- all the other machines needed, huskers, cleaners, etc; are now an order of magnitude too slow. We did also get great TV coverage from our Rochester Minnesota NBC affiliate, KTTC. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video here, so the link will have to do. Meanwhile- the other two neohybrid nut crops we work on are just in the early stages of ripeness; and chestnut harvest, and hybrid hickory harvest, are looming. Hazel harvest is NOT finished, meanwhile; we will be machine picking our field...

Chestnut (and hickory) harvest is in full swing; we're about 1/3 of the way into it. The 80°F, flooding rains and high winds of a few days ago (we got off easy, only 4.3" in 24 hrs) brought down a huge number of nuts. We're almost caught up with the pick up process, and the cool weather now has slowed the drop slightly to let us catch our breath a little today. We're finding it has been an above average year for chestnuts; size of nuts and crops per tree are both up. For those who persist in thinking it's not possible to grow "big" chestnuts in places like Minnesota, we offer the following: Just a quickie photo there; too much contrast, and they need to be held in a human hand for actual scale to be effective. Basically; these are huge, by any standards. Chestnut harvest is being helped out this year by our horses; we're not using them to pull carts of nuts; we put them to pasture in the mature chestnut groves. Using electric fence, they w...