Irene and Black Walnuts

[KTurner]

SE Virginia - we were pretty lucky, the worse that Irene did to us was 48 hours with no Internet.

She did knock a bunch of black walnuts out of our tree. The husks are still very firm. Are these worth husking and cracking or are they a loss?

Keith

[nolefan]

Can't really help you with your question but am glad to hear you weathered Irene okay.

[riptides]

SE Virginia - we were pretty lucky, the worse that Irene did to us was 48 hours with no Internet.

She did knock a bunch of black walnuts out of our tree. The husks are still very firm. Are these worth husking and cracking or are they a loss?

Keith

If they drop, they should be OK for husking, IMHO.

[MMagis]

They should be okay this late in the season. Open one up and check it out.

[wngsprd]

I live in Central Virginia and we got hit hard - still have a couple thousand who have not gotten their power back. We were out only 2 days. Here's bit of info from the extension office...hope it helps a little. I need to go check out my black walnut tree, too, to see if many got knocked off by Irene.

Allow nuts to ripen on the tree. After harvest, you must husk and cure the nuts for the best flavor. Remove the outer skin of the walnut, the husk, and dry the nuts to cure them. After curing, nuts can be used or stored either shelled or unshelled. Two pounds of unshelled black walnuts found in the wild will yield about a cupful of nut meats.

Harvest
As black walnuts ripen, the husk changes from solid green to yellowish green. Walnut juice leaves a dark stain, so wear gloves or use tongs when you handle unhusked walnuts. Press on the skin of the walnut with your thumb; ripe nuts will show an indentation. Weekly monitoring is important as nuts will mature over a four to six week period. Try to harvest the ripe nuts directly from the tree, ahead of the squirrels. If the nuts are too difficult to reach, they can be collected after they fall from the tree during frosts. Often the husk of mature nuts has dried and cracked. Husks must be removed before you store black walnuts.

[JDgreen227]

I live in Central Virginia and we got hit hard - still have a couple thousand who have not gotten their power back. We were out only 2 days. Here's bit of info from the extension office...hope it helps a little. I need to go check out my black walnut tree, too, to see if many got knocked off by Irene.

Allow nuts to ripen on the tree. After harvest, you must husk and cure the nuts for the best flavor. Remove the outer skin of the walnut, the husk, and dry the nuts to cure them. After curing, nuts can be used or stored either shelled or unshelled. Two pounds of unshelled black walnuts found in the wild will yield about a cupful of nut meats.

Harvest
As black walnuts ripen, the husk changes from solid green to yellowish green. Walnut juice leaves a dark stain, so wear gloves or use tongs when you handle unhusked walnuts. Press on the skin of the walnut with your thumb; ripe nuts will show an indentation. Weekly monitoring is important as nuts will mature over a four to six week period. Try to harvest the ripe nuts directly from the tree, ahead of the squirrels. If the nuts are too difficult to reach, they can be collected after they fall from the tree during frosts. Often the husk of mature nuts has dried and cracked. Husks must be removed before you store black walnuts.

We have a number of huge mature black walnut trees, it is so much work to go thru the husking and cleaning, and then the curing, cracking, etc to actually get the nutmeat is way more bother than it is worth. I pick them up off the yards around the house, and haul them back to the field. One year I thought people driving by might want "FREE" black walnuts, so I set out a half dozen 5 gallon pails full marked "FREE", and people stopped, dumped the nuts out, and took the pails....

[forgeblast]

I remember the first one I opened, no gloves....hands were stained for a while.

[jonyyuma]

The sticky husks can be removed by running over them with a light vecicle or tractor. I have done it with high success and not cracked the shells??But,also had them stolen by animals while they dried??

[Tenn_Blue]

We tried the "run em over" method, and it didn't really work well for us. I ended up buying an old hand crank husker that works well - It is "son powered" for the time being, but I see an electric motor in it's future...

Our tree took this year off. We had a really good batch last couple years, but nothing this year (after I bought the husker, of course ). Sounded strange to me, but one of the locals said that trees will occasionally not produce nuts for a season.

BTW, be careful what you do with the husks - the juice in them also inhibits growth of other vegetation. We just added them to the burn barrel to get rid of them once they dry...

[SandburRanch]

Although I do have a huller, I've found walnuts to be so aggravating the best place for them is in my drive to prevent erosion.