Willamette Valley hazelnut orchards
— — the rows that hold almost every hazelnut grown in the country.
Not only on a wall.
“Oregon grows close to 99 percent of the hazelnuts in the United States, and almost all of that crop comes off the Willamette Valley floor. The orchards run in straight rows across Yamhill, Marion, Washington, and Polk counties, the trees pruned wide and low to let the harvest fall onto bare earth. Spring leaves them in pale green; fall turns them gold. The nuts drop in October and are swept off the ground by machine, a quiet pattern the valley has kept for more than a century. from the studio
Willamette Valley hazelnut orchards, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Willamette Valley runs about 150 miles north to south between Portland and Eugene, walled on the west by the Coast Range and on the east by the Cascades. The valley floor is the main hazelnut country of North America: Oregon produces roughly 99 percent of the United States crop, with about 90,000 acres in production as of the early 2020s. The orchards are concentrated in Yamhill, Marion, Washington, Polk, and Linn counties, on the deep silt-loam soils that also support the valley's wine, berry, and grass-seed farms.
The orchard year is quiet and patterned. Bloom comes in January and February, when the trees release pollen in cold air — hazelnut is one of the few crops pollinated by wind in winter. Leaves push in April, the canopy fills through summer, and the harvest runs from late September into October as the nuts drop onto the bare floor. Machines sweep the rows clean a few times per fall. By late October the leaves turn pale gold and the orchard reads as long stripes of colour against the dark trunks. A November rain ends the season.
The valley is best read by road. Highway 99W between Newberg and McMinnville passes through some of the densest orchard country, with rows running close to the shoulder. The Yamhill County wine roads cross the same ground, so a single afternoon can move between hazelnut rows, pinot vineyards, and the small towns that anchor both — Newberg, Dundee, Carlton, Amity. The Oregon Hazelnut Industry runs farm tours and tastings during harvest, and several growers sell roasted nuts and oil from farm stands along the way.