Got walnuts?

[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:

 

[bigtiller]

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.

 

[Marveltone]

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

Joe

 

[kenmac]

I have people beg for mine

 

[KTurner]

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

 

[JDgreen227]

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:

 

[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.

 

[joemd11]

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.

 

[JDgreen227]

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.

 

[ENG18LT]

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!

 

[nybirdman]

I found a black walnut tree localy,quite rare here.I would like to harvest and plant.Any pointers?

 

[JDgreen227]

I always wonder if I should just run a push mower over mine and chop them up and help them decompose the only issue I have with doing that is the grass surrounding the walnut tree is pretty much the best I have and I really hate to cut it short this late in the year. The alternative between that and picking them all up to run the tractor over the nuts and try to remove the hulls that way and hope the nuts don't make the ground lumpy. My preference is to pick them up but it would take the better part of a day to do that.

 

[KTurner]

I found a black walnut tree localy,quite rare here.I would like to harvest and plant.Any pointers?

I have two young walnut trees that I'm working on. "I" started these by leaving a bucket of walnuts on the porch, which the squirrels proceeded to eat or bury in the flower beds beside the porch. The next year, several young walnut trees emerged. I waited until the following winter when they were dormant and transplanted them. Can't have a walnut tree growing up in the rosebed below the dining room window.

Keith

 

[JDgreen227]

I found a black walnut tree localy,quite rare here.I would like to harvest and plant.Any pointers?

You mean "transplant"...ummm, okay this is the ideal time of the year to transplant smaller trees. Not sure how large the one you found is but be prepared to dig deep and get at least 3/4 of the roots and if possible give it lots of water before digging it out and especially AFTER you transplant it. Black walnuts are very slow growing, the smallest one I have is at least 15 years old and is still only 18 feet high and has never produced a nut yet. The leaves are very small and these trees are one of the last to grow leaves in spring and one of the first to drop them in the fall. DO NOT plant a black walnut near a garden or flowerbeds....the leaves contain a compound (juglone) that is deadly to many flower and vegetable species...especially tomatoes. Another thing...besides the small messy leaves, they drop long leaf stalks which are great at clogging gutters.

 

[JDgreen227]

I have two young walnut trees that I'm working on. "I" started these by leaving a bucket of walnuts on the porch, which the squirrels proceeded to eat or bury in the flower beds beside the porch. The next year, several young walnut trees emerged. I waited until the following winter when they were dormant and transplanted them. Can't have a walnut tree growing up in the rosebed below the dining room window.

Keith

:laughing: In the spring and summer if I let my grass get about 4-5 inches tall here I see HUNDREDS of tiny walnut tree sprouts all over the yard....If I didn't mow them over I would have THOUSANDS of trees by now.

 

[joshuabardwell]

I found a black walnut tree localy,quite rare here.I would like to harvest and plant.Any pointers?

Step 1: Have squirrels.

Step 2: Wait until spring and watch all the walnut seedlings pop up in your hedges and other decorative beds.

At least that's how we do it around here. :laughing:

 

[buckshot721]

We have 7 walnut trees here, so plenty of nuts. One landscape rake and off the the burn pile they go! Got about 50 saplings we have to pull out.

 

[DKCDKC]

Black walnuts are common here. Always had them in my yard. My mother used to get the kids to gather them with a wheel-barrow and dump them in the wide drive area behind the tractor shed. By December traffic had husked them, so the kids would gather the nuts again in buckets and sit them by the fire. On nights when we had no homework, we would be tasked to crack some with a hammer on a brick. My mother would take the choicest pieces and use them in fruitcakes and cooking. The flavor is much stronger than English walnuts, but great for cooking.

Now I rake them up into the FEL or shovel into the pickup and take them down to my conservation area along the creek. I scatter them there with a shovel, and a few eventually come up - which is exactly what you want in a conservation area without the cost of transplants.

 

[bilrus61]

We graft our walnut trees here. We have a bumper crop this year of Emma Kay and Sparrow and other variaties. If anyone wants to know the source to buy grafted black walnut trees just IM me. Its not me but it is a local nursery. Trust me, the grafted nuts are much better than a average wild tree in being easy to crack and full of meat.

 

[Radar52]

Down here in SE Michigan we would love some Walnuts, store prices are insane..

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: