The first walnuts I found this year had fallen from a tree on a park road. I was a half-mile from the car and the day was unseasonably warm, so I took off my shirt and knotted it into a sack to hold about a dozen nuts, which were half green and half brown. I was proud of my ingenuity until I got home, untied the shirt and saw the deep brown stains all over it. I didn’t even bother putting it in the hamper.
I took one nut and tore into the thin, papery shell. The black material surrounding the nut inside was damp, mushy and cold. I thought those stringy, whitish segments were part of the husk until I saw one of them wiggle. Not wanting to discard the nuts after investing an entire T-shirt, I put them in the back of the freezer, figuring the cold would kill the maggots while I waited for all the green to disappear. (I also made a mental note to keep quiet about what was in that lumpy bag next to the chicken thighs.) I washed my hands vigorously, but my finger pads remained a russet color.
A few days later, I emptied the bag onto the concrete apron of my driveway and used my boots to roll the nuts around and remove the husks. My hands remained relatively clean this time, but the driveway was left with a big brown blot that hasn’t washed away after five rainstorms. I set the husked nuts on the patio table to dry for a few days. Then I cracked them open in a vise on my workbench. Instead of the luscious, oily nut segments I was expecting, I found tiny, black, spongy discs.
Must have damaged the meat by freezing them, I thought. The next week I found two more batches in a state wildlife management area by stepping on the big husks while hunting for squirrels, which feed on the nuts. At home, I removed the husk from one nut right away and cracked the shell open. Inside were beautiful segments of meat, tan on the outside and brilliant white inside. The taste was intense, like a store wal nut times three. I removed the husks from the rest and set the nuts outside to dry.
Three weekends later, I turned the kitchen into a nut processing facility: vise on padded table, cardboard box to capture broken hulls, plates and nut picks to separate meat from hull. The small batch from the first tree — I had found fewer than a dozen under that one — was perfect. My wife, impressed at my resourcefulness, started asking where and how I’d found them all. My daughter, attracted by the crack of nuts popping open, offered to help. But when we started on the second, much larger batch of nuts from the second tree —there had been scores of them lying all over the ground — there was nothing inside but those gummy black discs. Reggie got silent. Carrie suddenly had to go text someone.
Total yield: about two tablespoons.
I started checking books and websites for information about black walnuts. I learned that the husk fly lays eggs in the husk (confirmed that), the husks had been used in the past to dye clothing (figured that) and that you don’t have to wait for the green to fade from the husk before you remove the nut. But I couldn’t find out why, out of about four dozen wal nuts, I was able to reap only enough meat to fill the gaps between my teeth. I started searching for walnut growers (yes, they exist) and finally found one — in Iowa. Billie Hanson owns 700 to 800 black walnut trees; last year he harvested 15,000 pounds of nuts. (I can only imagine what his hands look like.)
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Hanson. “You have a problem with your natives.” I thought he was setting me up for a Jersey joke, but Hanson meant that many native walnut trees don’t get pollinated. When that happens, the husk and nut will grow, but no meat will form inside. And while it is possible for a walnut tree to pollinate itself, it doesn’t occur often or well. You generally need other walnut trees nearby for a tree to fill its nuts. And because black walnut trees provide very desirable wood, many have been cut down over the years, which means the New Jersey woodlands aren’t overflowing with them.
What about the squirrels that find and bury the meatless wal nuts? Won’t that harm them? “No, they won’t do that,” Han son said. “Squirrels don’t keep bad nuts.” And that was why I’d found so many nuts that turned out to be barren and so few that had meat inside. I’ll go after walnuts again next fall. But I’ll do it when they’re already in the form of fat, tasty squir rels. Mike Toth is executive editor of Field & Stream magazine. He lives in New Jersey.
What’s more fun is throwing one of the already down fruits up and waiting to see what kind of chain-reaction you get with fruit waiting to fall. (Don’t stand right under the tree.)
A squirrel is just a rat with a good press agent.
Every year we try to harvest the nuts from the black walnut tree in our yard. My grandparents did it and I have dim memories of how to dry and store the nuts but Wife and I have never had any luck.
This hear was HUGE! There were bushels and bushels of nuts so we gathered them up and spent DAYS husking them. The few I've opened up have been empty and now it looks like mold is forming...sigh.
Maybe next year.
prisoner6
Why isn’t this in ‘Breaking’ news?
1. Gravel driveway ~ pour them out on the drive way and run the car on them on and off over a couple of weeks. In earlier times they drove the tractor over them, and even earlier the wagon, or just had the horses stomp on them.
2. Large hunk of iron. A piece cut from an old railroad rail is good. I have one outside if you'd like to see how it's done.
3. A large 2.5 pound hammer. Any lighter than that it might bounce off.
Let those husks get off by themselves. Then dry 'em out. Lay a walnut on the rail. Pick up the hammer and let it drop gently onto the nut from about 12 to 18 inches.
Once you've got the nut broken into 15 or 20 pieces, use your nut pick to pry the meat out.
It will last all winter long!
When I was done I pulled off the work gloves and it looked like I had been stacking wet cow patties. Since I had to go to work the next day I put band aids on all my fingers. Told people I had a farm accident.
Next year left the walnuts to the deer.
Brought back childhood memories. We gathered buckets and buckets of walnuts.
Use a board with a hole in it to get the outer green skin off. Rubber gloves will keep the stain off your skin. Let the nuts dry in the sun for a couple of days. Do cover with screen to keep the squirrels from stealing your food. Don’t remember any worms.
Those black walnut husks could have been used to catch a lot of fish.
A friend & I picked up several sacks full in the Ozarks last week.
Now let me tell you what I have learned over the years that makes it a whole lot easier and cleaner. To start with, once you have found a good free source, there is a company in Indiana that sells a handy tool to pick them up. It looks like a football shaped wire cage with a wooden handle. They work as I own one. No sore knees or back from picking them up. Next, build yourself a 4ft by 8ft wooden frame and a couple of sawhorses, if you don't already own some. Gather the walnuts right after first frost while they are as green as possible. Place them on the wire frame. Pile them up if you gather lots of them. Every couple of days pick up one end of the frame and just bounce them a few times to turn them for drying. Buy yourself a hand corn sheller. Once the walnuts turn black, for easy shelling, mount the corn sheller on a sawhorse and run the walnuts through the sheller. Takes a little adjustment to get the sheller to work right but it isn't that hard to do. Place a container under the sheller to catch the hull mess. Be sure to wear heavy rubber gloves. Once all the hulls are off the walnuts put them back on the wire screen and wash them clean with the water hose. In a couple of days, when the outside shell is dry, put them in potato sacks, the ones that potatoes come in at the store, and hang them in a shed or some place until you have time to finish processing. I have kept them for a year and they were still fine. If the trees there are prone to producing nuts that do not have any kernel in them, go back to the washing process and put them in a tub of water. Any that float are bad and have no kernel. I have found the best way to crack black walnuts is with a medium weight bench mounted vise.
Now if you are really energetic you can save the walnut hulls and with a little imagination you can produce your own walnut stain for finish wood. And, if that isn't enough for you, you can grind the walnut hulls finely and use them in your shot blaster to remove rust from metal. Black walnuts are a valuable commodity.
Sound like a lot of work? Sure is. But just imagine all the fine candies and cakes you can enjoy from you labor. By the way all you cooks, they keep good in your freezer for a long time.
When I was a kid my basketball goal was on a Walnut tree. Lots of ankle injuries during walnut season. The huge-gutted squirrel who lived there only ate sugar cookies so he was no help.
Ain't that the truth!
If you are having trouble with Black walnuts, you might try your hand at English walnuts. I do not think they taste as good, though. You guys that are finding the buggy walnuts; a good way to test them out beforehand is to put your walnuts in a bucket of water. The good ones will sink and the bad ones will will float.Dude. Ever hear of a bucket?