The farm at Glengarry is run by Carol Bracken and her husband Nathan and while they actually planted 1500 trees in their first year six years ago, they did start with planting one tree at a time.

Hazelnuts are a slow crop to build up as initial crops are usually small.

“This last year was our first commercial harvest, we got about one tonne,” Mrs Bracken said.

A mature hazelnut tree can produce up to 11 kilograms of nuts in a single year.

Mrs Bracken said she and her husband sort of “fell into” hazelnut farming after they decided to move back to Tasmania after spending time living on the mainland.

They decided to move back once they had their children, Emma, 8 and Simon, 5.

“We had always wanted to have our own business so we were looking for something we could do together,” she said.

“So we sort of found farming.”

Tamar Valley Hazelnuts at Glengarry now has more than 5000 trees on a property that is just more than 10 hectares.

The orchard trees are six years old and have begun to produce a commercial quantity of crop.

The Brackens do not traditionally have an agriculture background but were looking to establish a tree crop when they found hazelnuts.

“We both grew up around farms, Nathan’s parents are dairy farmers, but we had never farmed before.”

However, they found a supplier at Hagley who introduced them to the hazelnut and the rest is history.

Tamar Valley Hazelnuts now supply a local market but also supply to Entrepot provider, Strait Brands and Simply Delish catering.

Entrepot use the product as a honey drizzle used with cheese platters and Simply Delish use Tamar Valley hazelnuts to package up into trail mix to supply hikers and walkers.

However it is Strait Brands that uses the product in the most unusual way. Strait Brands has infused the hazelnuts to create a unique hazelnut gin, in a potential world-first for the spirit industry.

Mrs Bracken said collaboration with other Tasmanian brands was important to her and for Tamar Valley hazelnuts as a business.

“It’s definitely important to us, it means we can be identified as different, not only from other imported nuts but also from other Australian brands,” she said.

“There is so much demand for Tasmanian branded products, we have too much demand than we can supply at the moment.”

Not only does Mrs Bracken collaborate with other Tasmanian producers to create new and unique products but she also believes strongly in a farmers ‘social obligation’ to connect with her community.

Mrs Bracken is one of a group of women who are organising the Tamar Valley Farmgate Festival that recently secured funding for three years through Events Tasmania.

The Farmgate Festival will be held in November next year and will include a series of open days and events at several farms in the Tamar Valley.

“We have such a variety of different farms in the Tamar Valley so we thought it would be good to showcase what we have.” she said.

At least five farms have already signed up and Mrs Bracken said it was an important way farmers in the region could educate others about where food comes from.

“A lot of farms aren’t open to the public and they don’t know what happens there,” she said.

“But it’s important that we have these conversations about where food is produced.”

The Tri-Nut Conference for the hazelnut, walnut and chestnut industries was also held in Launceston this year, for the first time in many years, and Tamar Valley Hazelnuts was used as a field day destination for delegates.

Mrs Bracken said it was great to get other producers from across the country come and see what Tasmanian nut producers were doing.