Got walnuts?

Given the dismal growing season in mid-Michigan this year for tree fruits and garden crops, I had expected a low harvest of black walnuts from our trees. Well, it appears the weather INCREASED production of the darn things....I have one huge tree out front and have measured an average of about 7-8 nuts dropped per square foot...and the tree is dropping them over an area of about 55 feet square. How do you guys get rid of them? In years with low yield I use a pick up tool and toss them into a plastic dishpan that I drag around with a rope, them empty the pan into the loader bucket and haul it back...but this year after filling the loader bucket three times I have barely made a dent in the harvest. :laughing:

My trees production went into overdrive also this year. It seems like every third year this happens. One of my trees is branched out over the concrete driveway. They get sweeped and shoveled into the Gator and then dumped into the ditch near the corn field. The rest of that tree and all the others just get ignored. It does make it trickey to walk out there but by July they will all be gone, turned to compost I guess.

Send some my way!:D:p We don't have any Walnut tress around here at all. Dang nuts are expensive to buy in the store.

Joe

I have people beg for mine

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JDgreen227

Given the dismal growing season in mid-Michigan this year for tree fruits and garden crops, I had expected a low harvest of black walnuts from our trees. Well, it appears the weather INCREASED production of the darn things....I have one huge tree out front and have measured an average of about 7-8 nuts dropped per square foot...and the tree is dropping them over an area of about 55 feet square. How do you guys get rid of them? In years with low yield I use a pick up tool and toss them into a plastic dishpan that I drag around with a rope, them empty the pan into the loader bucket and haul it back...but this year after filling the loader bucket three times I have barely made a dent in the harvest. :laughing:

---

Eat 'em. It is a bit more work than what you've described though. Our tree isn't producing like yours is, but I've picked up about 600 in the past week or so. Today has been windy for our area, so there's probably a bunch more on the ground now. Husked those ~600 yesterday. My latex glove sprung a leak and now my hand is brown. Anyone know of any plans for an automated husker/cleaner/sheller?

Another option is to let the wildlife eat them. I don't know how, but the squirrels here will eat them. Well, they'll at least knibble the husks off as they leave little piles of husk. I assume they do something with the nuts because they always come back and make more piles of husks.

There's a company that has mobile equipment for processing walnuts and they go town to town. You can pay to have yours shelled, or you can sell your walnuts to them. I forget the name. They don't come anywhere near here (southeast VA).

Keith

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KTurner

Eat 'em. It is a bit more work than what you've described though. Our tree isn't producing like yours is, but I've picked up about 600 in the past week or so. Today has been windy for our area, so there's probably a bunch more on the ground now. Husked those ~600 yesterday. My latex glove sprung a leak and now my hand is brown. Anyone know of any plans for an automated husker/cleaner/sheller?

Another option is to let the wildlife eat them. I don't know how, but the squirrels here will eat them. Well, they'll at least knibble the husks off as they leave little piles of husk. I assume they do something with the nuts because they always come back and make more piles of husks.

There's a company that has mobile equipment for processing walnuts and they go town to town. You can pay to have yours shelled, or you can sell your walnuts to them. I forget the name. They don't come anywhere near here (southeast VA).

Keith

---

One of my former bosses has an electric walnut shucker but he lives an hour's drive away...I have one smaller tree that produces black walnuts almost 2X the size of the tree out front (!!!) in the husk and I save those and run my tractor wheels over them to break the husks off them wash them well and store them in my basement over the winter. I just wish there were a more practical way to collect the smaller ones so I don't waste so much time doing so. Kenmac, you say you have people beg for yours...well a few years ago I put out several 5 gallon pails of the nuts out front with a sign marked "Free" well somebody stopped and dumped out the nuts and took the pails....:laughing:

Our 2 trees are about 10 years old and looks like the best crop yet. Just got to get the walnuts before the wild critters help themselves.

My single black walnut tree had a bumper crop last year. I raked them into several piles and then used a coal shovel to load them into my lawn trailer. Seems like I did this every other day for weeks. The crop this year is much less.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mousefield

Our 2 trees are about 10 years old and looks like the best crop yet. Just got to get the walnuts before the wild critters help themselves.

---

??? TEN YEARS OLD??? I have one in my backyard that is at least 15 years old and it has never produced a single nut.

Yes production seems up this year. we have about 40-50 walnut trees and have been twisting ankles on nuts for the last month. It's crazy walnuts this fall!