Hiamonee Farms

Spring is always welcome in North Florida! It seemed to start very early this year, but as usual, there have been a couple of 'reboots'! Our pears, peaches, and apples have all completed blooming, and the blackberries have just begun. Chestnuts are just beginning to leaf out. Citrus is in full bloom right now, and the bees are always humming among those heady-sweet flowers. It looks like all the flowers survived two recent frosts, and although we had to top the trees to limit their height (they were so tall we couldn't harvest all of oranges and lemons even with a ladder last winter) we are expecting bumper crops! We're going to try opening up the citrus to U-pick activity late this year. We're very excited about new plantings that established loquats and thornless blackberries on the farm! The loquats are grafted trees that produce much larger fruits than the seedling loquats you find in nearly every yard in the Gulf South. Loquats bloom in this area in mid-winter, so getting them through hard winter freezes is difficult, but some made it! We only got a taste from the blackberries last summer, but we're expecting much heavier production this year, and we've expanded the plantings! We're also trying out some loganberries to see how they'll do here.

We're picking up chestnuts by hand every day, sometimes more than once a day - have to stay a step ahead of those annoying squirrels. Then every evening we sort them out and put them under refrigeration.

The chestnuts are falling now, and we've started harvesting them.  It's off to refrigeration for these babies!  Refrigeration (with high humidity) increases the sugar content of chestnuts. By the time they're used, usually in November and December, they will have become very sweet indeed.

September 8 - The chestnut trees are heavy-laden here in late summer. The limbs bend with the weight of the ripening chestnuts. Looks like another bumper crop! 

Those pesky squirrels are already nosing around.  They must smell or otherwise sense the chestnuts as they're about to fall off the trees.  None have fallen yet, but many burrs are starting to split.  When the burrs rupture and the chestnuts fall to the ground, the race begins to get to them before those tree-dwelling rodents do!

August 26:  Good rain this summer has produced a potential bumper chestnut crop!  The burrs are swelling fast now, and the trees' limbs are bending under the weight.  Looks like the best production in several years... just hope the tropical storms and hurricanes stay away!