Black walnuts

We have harvested black walnuts before. They are wonderful, but take a tremendous amount of work. First and foremost, wear good gloves! My husband and I had stains on our hands for weeks when we made the mistake of using thinner gloves. We ended up buying a box of gloves like doctors use and doubling them up. This allowed for dexterity and prevented us from getting stains.
It’s been a few years, so I hope I have these steps right. You want to harvest them when they fall from the tree. Lay them out on a tray until the hulls are softened. You should be able to make an indent when you press on the hulls before you process them. Some people say you can drive over them to remove the hulls - that didn’t work for us. Put gloves on and take a sharp knife and score it all the way around, then peel the hull off(sometimes you can just twist them off). Be prepared to see a lot of worms. While they are gross, they do not affect the nut meat. Drop the nuts in a bucket of water to soften the remaining hull bits. After you’ve accumulated a batch, take a wire brush to each of them to get some more off the crud off. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but they will dry faster and taste better the more clean they are. Some people use a power washer instead of the wire brush. Lay them back on a rack to dry and cure for a couple weeks. Properly cured walnuts will store in the shell for quite a long time, just keep them in a cool, dry place. To get at the nut meat - put safety glasses on and use a vise to break them in half(just crank slowly until they crack in half - you don’t want to completely smash them). Then use heavy duty wire cutters, vise grips, and pliers to get the nut meat out. Make sure everyone in close proximity wears safety glasses - nutshells fly everywhere! Store the nut meat in mason jars in the fridge or freezer.
The squirrels make quick work of the hulls. If you’ve ever seen a squirrel with a really dirty face - he’s probably been working on walnuts!

Comments

  • peppypoblano
    peppypoblano Posts: 92
    edited October 2018
    Yes, you pretty much have the whole ugly process down.  I'm guessing that's why there are so many to be found.  There are a couple of processing centers around that will pay you a very small fee per lb to bring them in.

     
  • StacyLou
    StacyLou Posts: 89 ✭✭
    edited October 2018
    Nice! I don’t know if there are any processing centers by me - I’ll have to remember to look into that. Do they do the whole process? It’d totally be worth it then! They really are quite tasty.
    If you do decide to do the whole process yourself, just don’t overdo it like we did! I think it was the second full summer at our current homestead and our beautiful black walnut tree was just raining down the nuts. We harvested hundreds of them. We stayed up many a night cracking nuts. Our hands gave out before we got through them all. That was several years ago and we still have a tray of them in the basement. We’ll crack open a few once in awhile - a good majority of them are still good! :)
    Oh! A helpful hint: If you do end up being a little over zealous in your harvesting and you find yourself with more nuts than time, putting the nuts in a bucket of water serves more than one purpose. Not all, but a fair portion of the ones that float aren’t good. So, maybe put your focus on the sinkers. ?
    It really is gratifying to eat nuts that you harvest and process yourself. Especially the black walnuts - they have such a rich flavor. Nothing else compares. Keep us posted!
  • EarlKelly
    EarlKelly Posts: 230 ✭✭✭

    Love the tips for harvesting. Have a few wild trees near me. Will gather up the nuts and give it a try. Looking forward to fruits of my labor. Thanks for the info!

  • judsoncarroll4
    judsoncarroll4 Posts: 5,490 admin

    My grandfather had a great old walnut tree in the chicken run..... wow, was it productive. We did all the same, but also soaked cleaned, dried nuts before shelling. They were amazing in cakes and ice cream!

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    I remember my mom gathering them n going through all of that process 😊

  • Obiora E
    Obiora E Posts: 517 ✭✭✭✭

    I harvested some 2 or 3 years ago. I wore some natural rubber gloves and removed the hull. I remember having them in a bucket of water and removing the ones that didn't float. I dried them and then put into the freezer.

  • Hassena
    Hassena Posts: 345 ✭✭✭

    Love it! We gather walnuts from our yard and around town. Then take them here...https://www.acornucopiaproject.com/

    They keep a percentage of the harvest and do all the dirty work. :) They even give the hulls to a local farm. There they are used in biochar.


    Happy harvesting.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I tried to get some from someone giving them away. I don't think that I was fast enough when replying.

    I read just a few days ago that you can use the green hulls to make a tincture. Don't throw those away!

  • DeeperEating
    DeeperEating Posts: 63 ✭✭✭

    I've heard of this too. Apparently you can extract the Juglone, which occurs in the shells in high amounts. Some promising potential uses for tumor treatment and also anti-fungal for topical use. I also know some people tout it for digestive support, but I don't know much about that myself. Pretty cool.

  • Obiora E
    Obiora E Posts: 517 ✭✭✭✭

    Thank you for sharing the resources on the tinctures. You can also make teas with the leaves and I read last year the best time to harvest the leaves is in June.

  • Marjory Wildcraft
    Marjory Wildcraft Posts: 1,615 admin


    WOw, love this info @peppypoblano ! I use the hulls for dying brain tanned buckskins and yes, they will make a strong dark brown. It's a great color fo buckskin but not hands 😊

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    This is so funny that this thread came up again. A friend dropped just about a dozen nuts yesterd and we were talking about collecting them again today. She told me where she saw a couple of trees with nuts all over the place. It is unbelievable to me that more people aren’t picking them up.

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    When I was a kid my Dad would drive the old truck into the woods and we would fill the bed with walnuts and take them to a processor to sell, we harvested many truck beds full of walnuts. That was our winter school money, we used the funds to buy boots and coats and gifts for the family. Of course we also processed several quarts of nut meats for the kitchen. I live on the same farm, but the walnut trees are in the low holler and the old road is long gone. I am just not able to tote buckets of walnuts up the hill, I may try to get some help to get a sack or two before winter. The hulls are a treatment for intestinal parasites and a good dye, a great foraging find!

  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,518 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My favorite nut! We had them back in Missouri, but I've not seen them around here in Idaho. Love the black walnut ice cream that we used to get when I was a kid. They are quite different in taste than the English walnuts, but so worth the time and trouble.

  • bcabrobin
    bcabrobin Posts: 251 ✭✭✭

    It's best to remove the hulls when they are green. Use old boots step on the nut and twist your foot, hulls should pop off. Or lay them out a hard surface like a road, driveway - be forwarded it will make black marks, drive your car over them. The hulls will come off. Lay the nuts where the animals can't get them to dry.

  • DeeperEating
    DeeperEating Posts: 63 ✭✭✭

    A friends just sent my a very timely video of a quick and easy way to husk black walnuts. I'll link to it on youtube below, but if you aren't interested in youtube or videos I'll vaguely describe the process below. I haven't tried it, but it seems pretty reasonable! They claim they can husk between 500-1000 walnuts per hour with the method.

    They put about 10 pounds of walnuts into a metal garbage can with whatever water is around (doesn't need to be clean at all, unless you want to try to save some of the hulls for medicine I guess? Then I'd use clean!). Then they agitate it with a paint mixing tool attached to a drill (I'm sure lots of other ideas would work for this, but I think the speed is pretty helpful, so a drill is probably a must for this method). They drain the water out, sort through the nuts. Many will have the hulls fully knocked off, but those that don't get thrown in with more nuts and agitated again. Then they rinse them, remove any that float (they are empty), and then agitate them again. They give those a final strong rinse and then dry them as all of us would. From the video these walnuts looked 90% clean after this process. For home use that seems clean enough to me!


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zdqdvLaG4

  • sarah121
    sarah121 Posts: 129 ✭✭✭

    @bejer19 @Laurie Juglans nigra is the extract that you can buy from the herb store. I use it in my bowel cleansing tincture which can be taken alongside psyllium husks to move toxic material out of the bowel. The formula contains:

    Black walnut husks, cascara sagrada, wormwood and fennel. I always add a "carminative" (digestive herb) to these mixes to prevent any possible griping and relieve gas. Fennel or corainder is great for this.

    The bowel cleanse is good for parasites, candida, weight loss and improved assimilation. Thanks so much for sharing how to make the tincture. But believe me - if you are going to do it then be prepared because it can be very messy!!!! I don't often say it but this is one to buy from the store!

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @sarah121 That may be the way I have to go, because I don't have a tree and was only aware of it growing in my general area because of the ad.

  • EarlKelly
    EarlKelly Posts: 230 ✭✭✭

    There are black walnuts near me that I was out gathering. Decided to check on the nearby state park. The walnut trees and hickory and oak trees are all loaded. Been years since I have seen so many nuts. Like walking on a sea of marbles. A foragers heaven. You could fill a five gallon pail of each nut in a half hour. Just amazing.