Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

Posted On November 19, 2025

I’ve got some nutty 2025 news thatI have not previously shared.

My 15 year wildlife food source tree diversification program has finally, this year, produced its 1st tangible results.

In the form of my 1st ever hazelnut crop!

When Robin & I 1st purchased our home over three decades ago, the land that came with it was, save for some scrub brush, choke cherry & elm, almost utterly devoid of trees. So, adding several hundred seedlings purchsed from our local soil & water conservation district each year, I began planting them. My initial focus was on establishing areas of varied conifer cover, while at the same time, each time I spotted a self planted seedling oak, I flagged it and caged it to encourage oak growth with a goal of re-establishing acorns as a sustainable wildlife food source.

With the help of my friendly neighborhood chipmunks & redsquirrels, my property’s oak grove quickly reestablished itself and has since flourished.

Squirrels, including reds, greys & chipmunks, are an often underappreciated but invaluable asset in habitat enhancement.

However, as I noticed that acorn mast years were inconsistently unreliable at best, about 15 years ago I decided to make it my goal to diversify my land’s stock of available wildlife food sources by expanding my inventory of fruit & nut tree mast choices.

I began with black walnuts, which grew in abundance at several locations nearby locally, by harvesting a big bucket full of walnuts, which I proceeded, barehanded, with my buck knife, to husk, rinse & plant. What I did not know at the time & learned the hard way, was that black walnuts have that name for a reason! They contain a dark resin that, when exposed to moisture, is as good as any commerical stain. As a result of that effort’s lesson, I walked around for the next several months with indelibly and noticeably dark brown stained hands.

The reaction I sometimes got from folks when I reached out my hand was rather comical. Upon seeing my dark brown stained hands, they’d quickly pull back, like I had some kind of disease! That stain didn’t fade from my hands for well over three months. Itnot only arkened my hands, but made my skin silky soft.

However, the effort proved worth the price. after planting husked nuts 5 to a hill, I experienced excellent germination which, jumping fifteen years forward, while they have yet to produce nuts, has given me two dozen healthy black walnut saplings, currently ranging in height from 8-15 feet.

(Above, two of the trees in my slowly maturing black walnut grove, which, after 15 years, still has yet to produce nuts.)

Then, as my oak/walnut mast project slowly evolved, I noticed that my resident squirrel population had begun assisting me by planting something else:

Hickories!

(R) A pair of squirrel planted smoothbark hickories. (L) A bitternut hickory I rescued & planted from one of my local Tractor Supply Store’s $1 season end sales.)

So, every time I went out for a walk on my land, I would keep a wary eye out for hickory seedlings, which, once spotted, I would immediately flag, then hardwire cage & once they grew tall enough, tree guard, to protect them from buck antler rubs & deer/rabbit browse.

Then, about ten years ago, as I waited for my walnuts & hickories to begin producing nut crops, I decided to further expand my nut mast diversifitation efforts by planting 10 each hybrid, cold hardy chestnuts & hazelnut seedlings, which I purchased one spring from my local Tractor Supply store for $1 apiece in their end of spring “get rid of every tree we’ve got left” special.

After two seasons, it appeared to me that 6 of 10 chestnuts took. Which I considered a successful return on my $10 investment. However, those six (now four, it looks like two more have given up the ghost) chestnut trees have grown exceedlingly slowly, currently healthy in appearance, but still a long way from chestnut production, at only about 3-4 foot in height.

I experienced nearly identical resuls with my hazelnut seedlings, with 4 of 10 cold hardy hybrid hazelnut bushes firmly taking root.

(For those unfamiliar, hazelnuts grow as more of a bush than a tree.)

Over the course of the ensuing decade, some years my oaks have had good acorn mast years, and some years they haven’t. In the interim, as I awaited the slower than molasses maturation of black walnut, hickory, chestnut & hazelnut (My mom always says about trees: “1st they sleep, then they creep,then they leap.”– I can vouch for the sleep & creep part, I’m still awaiting the leap!)), I expanded my sustainable wildlife food source production efforts beyond nut trees to apples, crabapples & bush cranberries.

Despite this year’s drought, 2025 brought me not only my 1st apple & crabapple crops,

(Below (L) cold hardy JonahMac apple, (R) Sargent crabapple- the fruit on these Sargent crabapples is exceedingly small.)

But also my 1st viable bush cranberry harvest.

(Below: Highbush Cranberry)

(My highbush cranberries might be too bitter for off the bush human consumption, but I’m betting that the Monroe Wildlife Area’s feathered residents will love them!)

This past summer I also received as a pleasant hybrid chestnut surprise. While out walking my trails, I somehow spotted leaf growth from two additional chestnut seedlings I had years ago given up on! That discovery brought my chestnut tree total back up to six. I immediately flagged & hardwire caged them.

In addition to all of that, earlier this summer as a further expansion of my wildlife food source diversification efforts, I purchased 6 mulberry seedlings from a nursery, which I potted to encourage root growth for a year or two before putting them in the ground. They all appear healthy. I also purchased & potted 10 beech seedlings from the Arbor Day Society, which do not.

I will wait until spring to give the beech seedlings until next spring to see if in year 2 any of the root balls actually produce leaves or fresh shoots. If they do not, I will attempt to get the Arbor Day Society to replace them, or if they won’t, I’ll search for another beech seedling source and try them again. I am also contemplating next year adding an attempt at growing Paw Paw’s to the mix. We may be a bit outside their growing zone, but I have friends who are growing them successfully over Rochester way, so maybe we’ll see!

However, with all of that said & done, & the initial success of my apples, crabapples & cranberries, my greatest pleasure came when I discovered that my hybrid hazelnuts, after 10 yeas of waiting, had finally given me my 1st acorn alternative crop.

Because, as the old jingle goes:

“Sometimes you just feel like a nut!”

& Foodsource variety is the spice of life that helps my Monroe Wildlife Area’s resident citizens grow up to be…

“Magnificent”

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Until Our Trails Cross Again:

ADKO