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I would love to grow some nuts as I am putting an order for my fruit trees and see the nursery also stocks hazelnuts...I am a bit concerned that they might be a bit high maintainance- the nursery suggests setting up a drip irrigator and fertilising a lot, this makes me wonder if they are too demanding for a new and rather absent minded gardener...what do you more experienced folk think?

To be honest, I have several hazel trees and I find them to be very low maintenance. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but all I did was keep them well watered only with a can until they were settled and I certainly never fed them..mine are very healthy and vigorous

Ooh goody! A lady on the Australian forum who lives up the valley from me says they grow well here and are used as a base tree for truffles here in Tasmania.
I am going to order some now!

ooh yes I had just read somewhere the other day that they were used as a base tree for truffles in this country...how funny good luck

Jessiebean wrote:Ooh goody! A lady on the Australian forum who lives up the valley from me says they grow well here and are used as a base tree for truffles here in Tasmania.
I am going to order some now!

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If you want truffles you will have to buy inoculated trees, the only other advice i can give you if to have your soil checked for boron levels, if it is deficient, you will have to add some (perhaps in the form of borax) if you want the hazels to fruit - it made a HUGE difference to our crop - from a handful of mostly empty shells to bags full of plump nuts!

Ok, thanks for posting FTB- I don't think we will raise our ambitions to Truffles yet but it is good to know about the Boron. I want to test the soil ph and having never done so before I was wondering if the Ph testing litmus papers are good enough as it is so much cheaper to get some from e*ay ($2.99) rather than buying a soil testing kit froma graden centre($20).