A HAZELNUT tree gave a huge crop after a bit of fertilising

I've been doing the unthinkable. After lowering the blades of my mower as low as possible, I brutally cut an area of grass so hard that the scalped surface of the soil was fully exposed.

This is an appalling way to mow grass, but it was done deliberately around a hazelnut tree.

The nut crop is about to mature and I want to harvest as many as possible without long grass getting in the way as I rake up the fallen nuts.

The reason for such a heavy crop was almost certainly because of an experiment I carried out a year or so back.

We have three different hazelnut trees, all planted 20 years ago.

To be honest, they have been neglected in the past because they continued to produce reasonable crops, despite never being fed, watered or pruned.

The experiment was carried out partly because I wanted to re-use a large accumulation of old newspapers in the garden.

One hazelnut tree, an American white, regularly produced small numbers of exceptionally large, wonderfully sweet nuts.

However, the tree never grew much, probably because it was usually surrounded by long grass and weeds for much of the year.

So the winter before last I slashed the long grass around the tree, sprinkled blood and bone fertiliser over the debris and watered it in. Then thick layers of wet, overlapping newsprint were spread on top, held down with sheep manure, pelletised chook droppings and a generous sprinkling of sulphate of potash.

These enriching layers were finally topped with a 150mm deep mulch of spoilt hay.

Growth last summer was phenomenal after an occasional, extra-deep watering. However right now, enormous clusters of big hazelnuts are weighing down branches and ripening fast.

Any time soon the nuts will be scattered over the ground beneath and around the tree, which is now virtual bare earth.

As hazelnuts fill out during summer they first become heavy with water, bending the branches.

As the nuts begin to mature, the moisture content is replaced by oil, allowing the drooping branches to lift again gradually.

Finally the ripe nuts loosen in the husks and the entire crop cascades in about a week.

Hazelnuts keep in the shells for a long time in perfect condition. They can be eaten whole while raw, roasted or processed into a kind of oily powder.

They are magnificent when added to soups or a big range of sweet dishes and are packed with vitamins, minerals and marvellous healthy oil.

Hazelnut trees are very ornamental, especially when leafless and drooping with catkins in winter. They are really very big, multi-stem shrubs with many suckers, but can be trained to a single trunk to make excellent small shade trees.

Often those few nuts left on the ground will germinate and grow into vigorous seedlings.

However the nuts from seedling trees are small and of limited value. The best way to propagate hazelnut trees is to separate off and dig out rooted suckers during winter.

Hazel suckers always come true to the mother plant because the trees are rarely grafted.

Unfortunately hazelnut trees need the pollen - by wind drift - from another variety, which is why a single tree is non-productive. Being small trees, however, they take up little space, although they need to be planted about 5m apart so cross-pollination can operate.

Confusion has long existed about compatible varieties.

This why I planted three trees - wanliss pride, lambert and American white - a few metres apart and all produced crops.

Hazelnut trees are planted bare-rooted in winter.

To bear good crops the trees need a winter chilling of around 900 hours below 7C.

This is normal in most inland parts of southern Australia.

Most specialist fruit and nut tree nurseries provide good combinations of cross-pollinating hazelnut trees for maximum yields of delicious nuts.

So if you'd love your own little nut grove, my advice is to order your trees now.