Cobnuts

I've got high hopes for our cobnuts this year.

Studland wood

This is the way.

Spring Equinox

Today we enjoy equilibrium as the wheel turns into Spring, only for a moment mind, as the wheel never really stops turning. Out and about the first tree buds are beginning to unfold on the early leafers, birds darting from branch to branch through air thick with their chatter, and around our feet everywhere a lush green carpet is squeezing upwards...the land is awake. Springs wonders surround us as our journey into warmer longer days opens before us. A happy Spring Equinox / Alban Eilir to y'all. /|\

Bullace

Wandering along Dark Lane this morning with Geoff I was struck by how laden with fruit the hedgerow shrubs are, Sloe, Haw, Hazel, Oak, all are weighed down with ripening produce.  A nice surprise was to find a few good sized Bullace (Prunus insititia) shrubs also well laden with fruits. It got me thinking, just imagine if as a society we embarked on a massive program of hedge laying, of creating miles of hedges. Imagine the quantities of fruits and nuts we could harvest in a good year, not to mention the creation of valuable wildlife habitats and in light of the climate crisis, the carbon sinks we'd establish. If only we thought outside of our self constructed box, nature offers simple solutions to humanities complex problems.

Copious Cobs

It's not just the common Hazel out and about that's got a bumper crop developing, in our garden the Cobs (a variety of Hazel which produces much larger fruits, sometimes also known as 'Filberts') are better laden than we've ever seen then them. The same applies to them though as with the wild varieties, it's only at harvest we'll know if the shells are full. Last year we had a fantastic crop of good (commercial) sized nuts, and very tasty they were too. Fingers crossed for the years haul.

Nut clusters

Walking over The Tarrents again and along the hedgerows and in the coppiced woodlands the hazel boughs are sagging under the weight of this years developing nuts. Commonly the nuts hang singly, in pairs or sometimes threes, though this year clusters of five, six or more are more than commonplace. I don't remember a year of such fecundity, though the proof will only be known at harvest time. You can never really know what's inside the shell, frequently a good sized healthy looking shell produces nought to speak of, or even nought at all. Still, there could well be a bumper harvest to come.

Canopy's coming

All about buds are beginning to burst into life as the first leaves of Spring start to show. I love all the seasons dearly, each has their beauty and gifts, though I'll admit I favour Spring. Springs beauties are legion, the overwhelming sense of fecundity, the boundless potential that offers, all that new life, the verdance, the light and the energy of it all. Springs energy is infectious too, walking in Spring is an opportunity to be energized, and I'm sure we could all do with some of that.

Going nuts.

We've a couple of Hazelnuts and a Cobnut in the garden, and last autumn I cut the rods out of them, leaving the parent trees unscathed. Doing that I assumed we wouldn't have much of a crop  of nuts this year...in the case of the Cobnut, I was mistaken. The Cobnut tree is more laden with fruits than I've ever seen it, good sized fruits too. Cobnuts are a corylus cultivar, very like the Hazelnut (corylus avellana) though propagated for much larger fruit, two maybe three times the size of the common hazelnut. I'll watch with interest how the fruits develop, as in years past the fruit case may have been well developed, though the fruit inside was not. Still, if they do come to fruition, we'll have quite a crop.

Early adopters

It's only a matter of time now, the forests trees are preparing to burst in to leaf. Some of the early adopters are already pushing their first leaves out, ready for the big cover up, when the woodlands close in on themselves. You can feel the lands about to shift into a new gear; the wild inhabitants know it.  The air is thick with bird song, so many different calls, the canopies are alive with activity.If you don't get out into the woods much, make time to do so now, it's electric.

Dainty flowers

For years I'd never noticed the tiny flowers on the Hazel. Yeah, the male catkins, they're very obvious to see hanging down, sometimes in clusters; but not the tiny reddish pink styles of the female flowers are much easier to pass by unless you're looking very closely. The Hazel (Corylus Avellana) is monoecious, with both male and female flowers on the same tree, although they can't self pollinate and require another hazel to produce fruits. Another sign of springs burgeoning.

Totem

Ageing totem.

Light at the end of the tunnel

The light at the end of the tunnel.

Old Hazel stool

I'm guessing that this old grown out Hazel stool was last coppiced around 75 years ago, it's one of several in the copse behind Knoll beach. They're fairly large and I suspect they'd have been managed for some years before the war, though, the war would have put an end to that management. The area was closed off at the beginning of the war, then due to exercises too dangerous to access through the war and beyond for years after until the dangers of unexploded ordinance had been removed. By then the land use had changed as had the need for coppiced materials, and the area became one of recreation rather than production. They're find old trees and I'm certain that re-cut they would once again become productive, a sustainable resource too. 

Hazel leaf

A Hazel (Corylus avellana) leaf.

Nuts

I can't remember such a promising year for Hazel nuts, it appears nearly every tree has a bumper crop of nuts weighing down their boughs and of a good size. This year for the first time we've got nuts coming on our garden Hazels and they've good sized nuts too; the oldest of our trees is about 6 years old and has now reached a fair size, say about 4m high, they can reach about 12m; though I'll have coppiced it before then. Left to grow naturally a Hazel has around an 80 year lifespan, although if coppiced you can extend that to several hundred years. I think the oldest in Britain is about 500 years or so old.  I said ' promising year' as it's not harvesting time yet and I don't like counting my chickens and all that. If it is good mind, I've got lots of ideas and things I want to try.

Nuts are forming

I noticed my first hazelnuts this afternoon, and you know what it's like, once you notice one you notice them all and it appeared that many of the trees were amply covered. The foragers friend, high in protein, carbohydrates and un-saturated fat, along with ample vitamins and minerals, hazelnuts make for an important wild food resource which stores easily and well; there's evidence of wide scale collection and processing of hazelnuts in our island since the Mesolithic and no doubt they'd have been utilized for a long time before. It'll be awhile yet before I'm out collecting, though it's nice to see them coming along.

Hazel stool

Far from damaging or shortening the life of a tree, coppicing and pollarding increase the trees health, vitality and longevity.  A Hazel tree has an average lifespan of about 80 years, though if coppiced that lifespan can be increased to several hundred years. Some of the Hazel stools we saw today must have well exceeded the average age. It's nice to see them coaxed back to life. 

Hazel Doorway

What magic will we encounter through the Hazel doorway?

Honeysuckle on Hazel

A vigorous honeysuckle shoot snakes its way up along a Hazel rod, determined to reach the light.  There are several rods like this amongst the coppice. None appear much bothered by their constricting companion in the climber and simply carry on growing around their hitchers embrace. This combination creates quiet striking twisted rods and I'm always on the look out for that perfect one. It will make a great staff when I find it.

Coppice

I've mentioned it before, I see it all the time, yet it never ceases to amaze me how widespread hazel coppicing must have been at one time.  From small clumps to whole areas of woodland, I come across neglected coppice where ever I walk.  I spied a neglected stool today, long overgrown, which had recently been cut back to the ground and with luck will, come next spring, sprout new rods. It's great to see coppicies rejuvenated. Looking down at the pattern created by the grown out and merging Hazel rods of the stool, I thought I saw a tortoise, then it looked like a bear and finally I settled on a dinosaur.