Hazelnuts are tasty and easy to grow in your own garden. With just a little care and a little patience, you too can have a bountiful harvest.
The Germans are crazy about the delicious round hazelnut. We import around 70,000 tons of hazelnuts every year - that's 35% of the hazelnuts produced worldwide. Only about 70 to 95 tons are produced in Germany. The native hazel is a good, early pasture for bees, improves the soil and does well even with little care. We think that growing it in your own garden is definitely worth it - that's why you can find out everything about growing the noble nut in your own garden here.
This article introduces you to the hazelnut (Corylus) in all its facets: origin and site conditions, care, possible diseases, harvest and storage. And of course you will learn about the advantages of growing the local nut.
Description and origin of the hazelnut
The common hazel (Corylus avellana) native to us belongs to the birch family (Betulaceae). The hazelnut bush is distributed across the entire European continent to Asia Minor. It survived the last Ice Age and was even the dominant tree in Europe in the Middle Stone Age. He only had to capitulate in front of the mighty mixed oak forests. The bushy, multi-stemmed growth of the hazelnut is typical, which is the result of constantly new shoots at the base. The saplings can already be several meters high in the first year and only branch out in the second year. The hazelnut leaves are alternate, roundish to obovate with a short tip and irregular hairs. Hazelnut leaves have a brief, yellow fall color. The hazel can also live up to 100 years.
Hazelnuts are monoecious, which means that one plant has both male and female flowers. The male flowers are clustered in catkins, the females show their red stigmatic branches in axillary buds. The hazelnut flowers before the leaves sprout in February or March. The male kittens deliver the firstPollen for insects, but pollination is by the wind. The hazelnut fruit is a single-seeded nut fruit. Only the seeds, which are rich in he althy, unsaturated fatty acids, are eaten.
Hazelnut tree tip: The tree hazel (Corylus colurna), which is relatively unknown to us, grows tree-shaped and taller than the common hazelnut. She comes from the Balkans, Turkey and Afghanistan. Its fruits are slightly smaller than those of the common hazel. In addition, it tolerates the urban climate well, which is why it is increasingly seen as a street tree.
Why it pays to grow hazelnuts yourself
Hazelnuts can now be bought quite cheaply in any supermarket. So what are the benefits of growing your own? A big argument for your own hazelnut bush is the taste. There is a whole universe of taste between roasted hazelnuts, almost all of which are imported from Turkey, and fresh, still moist nuts. In addition, the imported goods are not only transported far. The cultivation takes place in huge monocultures, with intensive use of pesticides and with morally extremely questionable working conditions - unfortunately often also for children. Producing your own hazelnuts is therefore the better alternative, ethically and ecologically. And the hazelnut is a garden dweller that is really easy to care for: diseases and pests are rare and their care is also simple and not time-consuming. In addition, it is one of the earliest pollen donors for wild bees. So it's worth trying the cultivation.
Hazelnut Varieties
In addition to the native hazel and the ornamental corkscrew hazel (Corylus avellana 'Contorta'), there are also varieties that have been bred for numerous and large fruits.
Recommended hazelnut varieties:
- C. avellana 'Webb's Prize Nut': early variety, large fruits, abundant settling, weaker growth, needs pollinators for high yields
- C. avellana 'Wonder of Bollweiler': Very large, cone-shaped fruits, very productive, needs pollinators for high yields
- C. avellana ′Hallesche Riesen′: Very large, rounded fruits, very productive, needs pollinators for high yields
Tip: Lambert nut (Corylus maxima) also provides tasty hazelnuts and is available with decorative, red foliage.
How and where is the best way to plant hazelnuts?
Corylus avellana Thrives well in sun and partial shade. In the shade, however, fruit set and fruit size suffer. A fertile soil also ensures better growth, but hazel also grows on poorer soil - albeit more slowly. It is absolutely frost hardy and its foliage is soil-improving. Planting should be done in spring or fall. Keep in mind that the hazel needs at least four to five meters of space in all directions to be able to unfold.
The incorporation of primarily organic fertilizers and potting soil - for example our Plantura organic universal soil - improves growth and growth as well as flowering and fruit in the years to come. Our Plantura organic soil activator is ideal for he althy soil life, as it supplies the microorganisms living in the soil. Our Plantura organic universal fertilizer then supports the hazelnut with all the important nutrients and promotes fruit set and fruit size.
Be careful not to plant the hazel too deep. Water them generously and ensure an adequate water supply in the weeks after planting. When planting in autumn, you should avoid nutrient-rich compost or mineral fertilizers, otherwise the young shoots will not be sufficiently frost-hardy in the winter.
Hazelnut pollination tip: Some hazelnut varieties can pollinate themselves and thus ensure fruit set. But some varieties require a different pollinator. Another variety or a wild hazelnut can be used for this. For the varieties presented below, we therefore point out the respective pollination.
Caring for and cutting hazelnuts
Apart from an adequate water supply in summer, the hazelnut does not require any special care. Annually 100 grams of our Plantura organic universal fertilizer or a comparable primarily organic fertilizer are sufficient to cover their nutrient requirements. The hazelnut is very tolerant of pruning. The cut is always made "from below": Thick, old shoots are removed from the ground so that the bush does not become too dense. If you have neglected this thinning for a long time, you can radically place a hazel on the stick without any problems. Here, all shoots are set back at knee height. However, you then have to do without a rich harvest for up to five years. The best time to prune is after flowering.
Propagate Hazelnut
Hazelnutscan be propagated by seeds, vegetatively or by grafting. The table below provides an overview of the different methods.
| Sowing | Harvest fruits before they are fully ripe and remove the skins; Sow seeds outdoors in autumn |
| Vegetative Propagation | Fruit varieties can be propagated by type using offshoots, lowering plants or tears |
| Finishing | In winter, varieties can be increased to C. avellana or C. colurna to be grafted; spread with tree wax; potted at about 16 °C in the greenhouse until mid-May |
Diseases and pests of hazelnuts
The hazelnut is resistant to diseases and pests. Occasionally it is attacked by powdery mildew, which, however, can hardly slow down its vitality. An annoying and widespread pest, however, is the hazelnut borer (Curculio nucum). It is one of the weevils, so it is also related to the vine weevil (Otiorhynchus). The hazelnut borer lays its eggs individually in unripe hazelnuts in which it has previously gnawed a small hole. The larvae eat hollow nuts that simply fall from the tree. If you want to minimize the infestation in your home garden, you can rely on early-ripening varieties, because they are infested less often. It is also possible to buy hazelnuts as stems - they are then grafted on the tree hazel.
You can easily attach a glue ring to a single stem. You can also use SC nematodes (Steinernema carpocapsae) on the ground under the hazel from September to kill the larvae that overwinter in the ground. Spreading a cloth under the bush has also proven useful. In this way, the falling larvae cannot pupate in the ground and the generation of the following year is at least partially absent. Pesticides against the hazelnut borer are not permitted in the home garden.
Tip: The pupae of the hazelnut borer stay in the ground for years, so your efforts may only show results after a few years.
Harvesting and storing hazelnuts
The hazelnut harvest starts at the beginning of September. Ripe nuts fall from the tree or can be knocked to the ground by shaking. You should not harvest firmly sticking fruits, because they are not yet ripe and therefore not tasty and alsonot storable. Remove the husks from the nuts. You don't have to remove the shells, however, because the seed can be kept much longer in the shell - for at least 12 months. Drying spread out in a cool, airy place will help prevent mold from developing.
Nutritional values and uses of hazelnuts
More than half the weight of a hazelnut is fat - but it's not just the he althy, unsaturated fatty acids that make hazelnuts a real local superfood. Hazelnut seeds also provide vitamins A, B, C and E as well as a lot of calcium, iron, potassium, sodium and phosphorus. In terms of weight, hazelnuts contain even more calcium than cow's milk. Due to secondary ingredients, regular consumption of hazelnuts has a positive impact on memory, cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease.
Tip: The valuable ingredients remain almost completely intact even when the hazelnut is roasted and processed. However, this also applies to all allergenic substances. However, if you only have a mild hazelnut allergy, you can still consume the super nut in a heavily processed state - for example in nut cream. By the way, dogs can also have a hazelnut allergy.
Hazelnuts have many uses in the kitchen - eaten fresh, chopped in cakes or biscuits, made into spreads or even made into hazelnut oil. The nuts taste particularly good in muesli if they have been roasted in the oven for 12 minutes at 180 °C. However, the production of hazelnut spirit and liqueur is better left to the experts.
If you are still interested in growing nuts from your own garden, you can find out everything about growing peanuts here.