hey folks this fall i’m digging up some of my hazelnuts to offer for sale – these were planted back in 2011 so they are almost 4 year old plants and most stand at two and half feet tall. vigorous and healthy they should start producing for youin three to four years. these are hybrid hazels grown from seeds selected from mark shepard‘s breeding program at new forest farm in wisconsin. if you haven’t heard of mark he has written a book called restoration agriculture. i haven’t read it, but i’ve heard it’s good. maybe this winter. 
plants will be potted up and priced at 10 dollars a piece – highly recommended that you buy a pair so they pollinate each other. they should be available the first weekend of october. locals i’ll let you know pickup location and details once i receive orders from you. mail order is a minimum of five plants. send email to dirtysabot (at) gmail dot com to reserve your plants.
little house on the urban prairie 
Hello Patrick. This isn’t about hazelnuts, but it reminds me that in blogs past, you have mentioned your interest in finding and mapping fruit trees in the city. Today, I discovered an entry place through the fence, above the Dequindre Cut. There I found several small trees bearing some lovely fruit that I couldn’t identify: cherry sized and round, with a firm skin that turns from yellow to a deep blush when ripe; the sweet inner flesh is like an apricot, and there’s a very small stone. In fact, the taste and texture are overall much like a ripened apricot, except with the fruit being so small, so round, and the skin being smooth, not velvety, a little tough, and a little bitter. Can you identify? thanks!
i think these are plums, i’ve sampled them before. – one of the things i love about the cut is that there are lots of wild fruit trees growing that just sprouted from folks throwing pits out. before it was redeveloped there were tons of wild apples, pears, and plums. not so many now. though i did sample a pretty good apple from the top of the cut the other day.
Thanks. Yes, they do seem like a plum. I looked online, and there’s a variety called Mirabelle, which seems closest in size and looks — but also appears to be very rare in the US, and highly prized in France — so I’m not sure that’s what this one is. Still, fun to find it and speculate. Unfortunately, the recent storms knocked over the largest and best of this little grove of trees, but there are some smaller others coming along.