Mount Roland Hazelnuts in Sheffield, Tasmania | Farm

Mount Roland Hazelnuts

Locality: Sheffield, Tasmania

Phone: +61 3 6491 2781

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25.01.2022 It is not unusual for us to have unexpected visitors at the farm. Frequently they are birds. This beautiful Southern Boobook Owl dropped in yesterday ... and posed for photos! What a magnificent creature!

24.01.2022 We feel for all of the humans, animals and plants stressed by the fires in Tasmania. Thankfully we are OK at the farm at present - although the dry conditions mean we must be constantly vigilant. The fires and smoke have created some spectacular sunsets here ....

24.01.2022 Our 2020 hazelnuts are now ready. We are delighted with the taste of the nuts this year - sweet and nutty ... really delicious! They can be posted express, Australia-wide, in sizes of 1kg, 2.5kg, and 4.5kg. For details of how to purchase, please look at our website. We expect to run out by Christmas so we advise you to order sooner rather than later. https://www.mountrolandhazelnuts.com.au//Featured_Products

23.01.2022 Today weve been experiencing typical Tasmanian winter weather: rather cold, intermittent showers, and spectacular light. After the cold front passed through this afternoon, the rainbow was stunning!

23.01.2022 Exciting news! On Friday we collected a new piece of machinery from the freight depot. It is a press, imported by us from overseas, for making beautiful hazelnut oil from the kernels. If it all works properly the press will allow us to produce our own oil here at the farm for the first time. This is something weve aspired to for about five years! It has been an effort to source the right sort of press that will enable us to make oil of the very highest quality .. we are hoping this machine will do the job. More news to come soon ...

22.01.2022 After many weeks of hard work, the 2019 harvest has finished! Our biggest and best harvest yet! A special thank you to the Finch family from Adelaide for their wonderful help. The nuts are drying and maturing slowly in our hazelnut shed and will be ready for shelling in a few weeks. We will soon be in touch with those on the waiting list. If you would like to be on the waiting list just let us know. There is also a little article on Mount Roland Hazelnuts in this weeks Tasm...anian Country, available online or in paper format from Tasmanian news agencies. https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au//49e3713a1dfcad9f7c1f231 See more

22.01.2022 One of the added benefits of having a hazelnut farm is that lovely little hazel trees spring up all over the place! This winter, weve been moving those trees into a more structured environment - along the boundary of our southern orchard, for example. This replanting activity has been made more enjoyable, but somewhat less efficient, because of the close attention of a big, boofy dog! Thanks for your help, Eli

19.01.2022 This is the time of year when we have our annual inspection with Australian Certified Organic. The 3-4 hour inspection is rigorous and involves an examination of our records and the farm itself. We have to keep detailed records of everything we do on the farm, ensuring that everything is in accord with the Australian Organic Standard. Water and soil testing is also required periodically. Cleaning and processing records have to be scrupulous. Its all quite demanding, but it does mean that customers can purchase our products with confidence knowing they are genuinely organic. The pictures show Greg Taylor and ACO Inspector Matthew Nichol in the orchard ... closely watched by Eli!

19.01.2022 A very big thank you to the members of the Kentish Garden Club who helped with our harvest yesterday. The daily total of 250kg was a daily record for us! Eli had a wonderful day with lots of cuddles and pats. We are very grateful to everyone for their help!

19.01.2022 Hello Friends. If any of you will be wanting hazelnuts before our next harvest (Mar-Apr 2021) we advise that you purchase now. We are almost sold out of the 2020 harvest nuts Sad but true!

18.01.2022 Composting is at the heart of organic/biodynamic farming. And it is just about Gregs favourite activity The recipe we use makes fast compost in four weeks and has all sorts of wonderful things such as vegetable scraps, cow manure, molasses and grass clippings. It is crucial to get the compost pile simmering at 60 degrees for about a week. From this we make a "tea" which is sprayed in our hazelnut orchards. Naturally Eli also loves composting ... so many delectable smells! The final picture shows matured compost from the last batch - doesnt it look beautiful?!

18.01.2022 We have experienced a warm-ish and dry spring. Some farmers call it a green drought! Although everything looks green the soil is dry underneath. We are hoping for a bit more rain before the typically dry weather of summer sets in. Our hazelnut trees are looking healthy, and next years nuts are just starting to appear at present. Fingers crossed for a good crop! In the meantime we have been enjoying some spectacular rainbows and lovely spring flowers .

16.01.2022 Weather patterns are changing here in Tasmania, as they are in many other places. For the first time in the 14 years we've been here on the farm, we have experienced flooding rains in October. Usually we have floods in winter, and very occasionally in Jan-Apr when there is an active east coast low. Our farm is only about 2km from the source of the Don River, so the water levels can rise quickly and dramatically, leaving us marooned! Thankfully they usually subside within a couple of hours.

16.01.2022 It is approaching that time of the year again! In about 2 weeks our harvest will begin. Our trees are PACKED with nuts and we welcome any WWOOFERS (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) who are available. We now have a little campertrailer (basic but comfy) for a single or couple to sleep in. A big thank you to the wonderful Marion from France who recently spent two weeks with us. Marion did an excellent job with mowing, pruning, fire-wood gathering, and brush-cutting. A huge help! Eli adored her, and has been very bored since she left

15.01.2022 One of the more difficult issues for organic orchards is grass. Grass takes away nutrients and water from the crop, and while conventional orchards use chemicals to kill the grass, this is not an option for organic growers. Spending hours and hours mowing is one solution, another is getting beautiful sheep to graze the grass! (they also fertilise at the same time ). This lovely little mob is again spending winter with us and we are very grateful for their help!

14.01.2022 Weve received a surprise package from Turkey. We wonder what is inside?!

14.01.2022 We hope you are all well and safe. Here, life on the farm has been proceeding fairly much as normal. Yesterday we finished harvesting our 2020 crop. This harvest took a bit longer than usual because some of our helpers werent able to travel to Sheffield, but we got there in the end! The nuts look fantastic! They are being processed and will undergo a drying period before being ready for sale in about six weeks. Get in touch if you want to be on the waiting list.... The finish of the harvest was timed well because we woke to our first fall of snow this morning! Goodbye autumn, hello winter!

13.01.2022 Yesterday we were very sorry to say goodbye to our sheep friends. After being with us for two months these charming creatures have returned to their home a couple of kilometres away. The girls will be having lambs very soon! We were impressed with the work done by the sheep in our hazelnut orchard, and hope to acquire our own little flock next year.

12.01.2022 Exciting news! After trialling agisted sheep, we are now the custodians of our own little mob of 23! Ten ewes and thirteen beautiful lambs. They are Wilti-polls, a variety of self-shedding sheep, and they are doing wonderful work maintaining the grass in our hazelnut orchards. They will save us many hours of mowing. We are delighted -and a little bit scared! - to be responsible for such gorgeous creatures.

12.01.2022 An unusual day at the farm. Our morning was taken up with a University of Tasmania photo shoot! The marketing team visited us to take some photos for Nursing at UTAS. The idea is to promote nursing care in rural areas, and to attract students to Nursing courses. Greg played the patient. Eli, though, had a frustrating time - so many visitors! ... but he was prevented from meeting and greeting. A boisterous, jumpy dog and expensive camera gear dont mix very well ...

09.01.2022 Thanks for the delicious hazelnuts Erdal! What a wonderful surprise - all the way from your orchard in Turkey. Hope to see you there one day!

09.01.2022 Perfect autumn conditions for harvesting hazelnuts! Sunny and cool, with Mount Roland at its stunning best. Thank you to all who have helped in the past week ... we are now 75% of the way through our largest-ever harvest

09.01.2022 Greg and Elizabeth both come from families with lots of nurses. We know that when a person is ill, there is nothing more wonderful than a skilled, caring nurse! Images from the University of Tasmania photo shoot on our farm late last year are being used to highlight the importance of nursing. A little bit scary for Greg to have his photo all over the place (!) but a very worthy cause. This picture appeared in yesterdays The Examiner (Launceston) and the North Wests The Advocate.

08.01.2022 Dont these hazelnuts look delicious? All packaged up today and ready to be posted to one of our wonderful customers in Brisbane. We are still working our way through the waiting list for the 2019 harvest, but we welcome new orders. Please contact us if you are interested in purchasing.

06.01.2022 One of the more enjoyable aspects of growing things is seeing - and tasting! - what lovely things other people do with your products. In the last couple of days weve been indulging in a delicious "Organic Jenola" from Jennys Grain Free. It is made with nuts (including our hazelnuts), dried fruit, coconut and other yummy ingredients. It smells and tastes heavenly https://www.jennysgrainfree.com.au/shop.html

05.01.2022 Autumn in northern Tasmania: the wood-fire at night, beautiful light with short-ening days, and lots and lots of hazelnuts ready to fall! We have some helpers for our harvest, but need more. If you know of anyone who would like some work in exchange for accommodation and vegetarian meals, please ask them to contact us. If they are members of WWOOF, they can also check out our profile on-line. We think this will be our best ever harvest. From this one tree alone, 6.5kg of hazelnuts! - not a record for us, but a very healthy total.

04.01.2022 After a long period of development our Organic Hazelnut Oil is now available for purchase! As far as we know, this is the only certified organic and biodynamic hazelnut oil grown and produced in Australia. Unlike almost all other oils, ours is ultra-cold pressed and made fresh to your order so the oil retains all its natural goodness. The aroma and taste is a revelation!... The oil is available in either 100ml bottles or 1 litre tins. The bottled oil is great for the home kitchen; as a gourmet dressing for summer salads, for example. There are many other ideas and recipes on our website. The 1 litre tins are for caterers, but also superb for massage or skin care hazelnut oil has remarkable skincare properties. Were very excited about our new hazelnut oil. For more information or to purchase, go to our web page: https://www.mountrolandhazelnuts.com.au//Featured_Products

04.01.2022 Weve spent the last few days cleaning up after storm-force winds on Sunday caused a great deal of damage. We had 11 trees down, including two big ones across powerlines and our only entry road. Three days without power! - a challenge when you are relying on electric fences to keep cattle in. There has been much chain-sawing and fence-repairing to do. We were a little disappointed by the lack of coverage this severe weather event received in the tasmanian media. When the power is out in rural areas you are reliant on radio. But on Sunday the radio was all about sport. The birds, including wedge tailed eagles, have seemed disoriented by the event too! Many of their favourite trees are no longer there ...

03.01.2022 Over the last four weeks weve really enjoyed the company of some new creatures on the farm: sheep! Arent they lovely? We are trialling them for grass control in our hazelnut orchards. They are Wiltipolls, a variety of self-shedding sheep, and have been kindly lent to us by friends. This little mob is doing a superb job of eating the grass but not eating the hazelnut trees! The trial has meant a lot of extra work to build sheep-proof fencing but we are confident the time investment will be worth it in the long run. Once these guys return to their home in December we will begin planning for having our own little mob in winter next year. Exciting!

03.01.2022 We are very pleased with how our 2019 harvest is shaping up! If everything goes well, and barring adverse events (always possible in farming!), it looks as though our harvest might be the best yet. Fingers crossed!! That means we will need help at harvest time in March-April! Could you all please spread the message? We can offer a WWOOFER (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) arrangement: accommodation and meals in exchange for 4-6 hours a day work, from around mid March to mid April. Prospective workers can contact us via facebook or email or can telephone Greg on 0448 912 781.

02.01.2022 Today we've been experiencing typical Tasmanian winter weather: rather cold, intermittent showers, and spectacular light. After the cold front passed through this afternoon, the rainbow was stunning!

02.01.2022 In recent months, two wonderful young men have joined us at the farm: Charlie, a long-haired tabby cat, and Eli, a border collie-labrador cross. We think that Charlie spent the first few weeks of his life in a blackberry bush but he decided that a couch beside the fire was much more comfortable! Charlie is very loving and playful. He likes climbing up trees and teasing Eli. Occasionally he still likes to spend a night in a blackberry bush to reconnect with his origins. Eli was a challenge for us at first. So energetic and so naughty! But he is maturing all the time. He enjoys carrying things, chewing on things, digging up irrigation pipe, and trying to catch fish in the pond.

02.01.2022 For us, May is one of the more enjoyable months on the farm. The harvest has finished and the nuts are drying and maturing in preparation for sale. We have time to do fun things like tree planting. This May we are planting about 300 native trees in shelter belts and along the banks of the Don River. It is particularly rewarding to be putting in baby plants close to mature plants that Greg planted over ten years ago. We love the colours of this banksia!