Ready for Harvest

Preparing for Harvest at Holland Pecan Farm

Harvest season is here!

We are excited to begin harvesting our delicious pecans this week! We've had a little delay thanks to some much-needed rain. While we are certainly grateful for the rainfall, wet ground makes it difficult to get our equipment into the orchards. As you can imagine, heavy equipment and soggy ground don't make the best combination!

We thought you might enjoy a little behind-the-scenes look at what takes place before harvest begins and some of the signs we watch for that tell us harvest is just around the corner.

Getting the Orchards Ready

One of our first steps is preparing the ground beneath the trees. We mow the grass throughout the orchards, keeping it short so the pecans will be easier to find and collect. Tall grass can mean lost pecans, and we certainly don't want that!

We also sometimes spray the areas directly beneath the trees to control unwanted weeds. Not only can weeds interfere with harvesting, but they also compete with our pecan trees for valuable water and nutrients. Keeping our orchards maintained is an important part of caring for our trees throughout the growing season.

How Do We Know When Pecans Are Ready?

Have you ever noticed the green husks surrounding pecans while they are still growing on the tree?

Those husks, called shucks, give us one of our first clues that harvest time is approaching.

We regularly ride through our orchards watching for the shucks to begin splitting open. This is a sign that the pecans are reaching maturity. Pecans that are shaken from the trees too early, while still enclosed in tightly closed green shucks, may not have fully developed kernels and can be poor quality.

Ideally, we like to give the shucks time to open and the pecans time to mature before we begin shaking. We don't always wait for every single pecan to fall naturally, but we do want as many as possible to be ready for harvest.

And, of course, we need the ground to dry out enough to get our equipment into the orchards. After all this rain, that may take a little patience!

Let the Shaking Begin!

Once the pecans are ready, we use a mechanical tree shaker to gently grip the trunk and vibrate the tree, causing the mature pecans to fall to the ground.

When ground conditions allow, we bring in a tractor-pulled harvester to gather the pecans and transport them to our cleaning plant.

When the ground is too wet for the harvesting equipment, we sometimes rely on hand labor to gather the nuts. We are incredibly blessed to have such hardworking, dedicated people who return to help us each harvest season. We truly couldn't do it without them!

Once the pecans leave the orchards, there is still plenty of work to be done before they are ready for you to enjoy. We'll share more about our cleaning and processing operation in another post.

Not All Pecans Are Created Equal!

Did you know that different varieties of pecans mature at different times?

Fortunately for us, they don't all become ready for harvest on the same day!

Our first variety of the season is the Pawnee, and it is one of our favorites. Pawnees are known for their large size, relatively thin shell, and beautiful light golden kernels. They have a rich, naturally sweet, buttery flavor that makes them wonderful for snacking and baking. Pawnee is just one of our varieties of Mammoth pecans, mammoth meaning large pecans.

Now, you may be wondering, "Are all your Pawnee trees planted together in one field?"

I WISH!!!

Pecan trees need compatible varieties nearby for proper pollination. That means our orchards aren't planted with just one variety in a single area. For example, we may have three rows of Pawnees followed by a row of a pollinator variety, then more Pawnees.

To help us keep everything straight, we spray-paint a colored band on the first tree of each row. Each color identifies the variety planted in that row, making it much easier to keep track of what is ready to harvest.

With 10 different areas of pecan trees on our farm, you can imagine how much moving around we do during harvest season!

It's a busy time, but it is also one of the most rewarding times of the year. After months of caring for our trees, watching the weather, irrigating, fertilizing, and protecting the developing crop, we finally get to enjoy the fruits of all that labor.

Fresh Pecans Are Here!

Our first Pawnee and Elliot pecans of the season are ready for purchase, and we couldn't be more excited to share them with you!

Whether you're stocking up for holiday baking, preparing homemade gifts, or simply enjoying a handful of fresh Georgia pecans, we would love for Holland Pecan Farm to be part of your traditions.

Be sure to place your order early!

Thank you for following along with us and supporting our family farm. Stay tuned as we take you through more of our harvest season, from the orchard to the cleaning plant and eventually to your table!