It's walnut time again. Where's the back brace?
If you don't have any experience with black walnut trees, you should first of all consider yourself very, very lucky. Those wretched walnuts are the biggest imaginable pain in the ass. They rain down in the thousands every fall; they have to be picked up by hand because they're too heavy to rake up into piles; they stain everything black as they decompose; and they're toxic to many plants so you can't grow a lot of things under the trees. Plus, they're nearly impossible to crack for eating.
I hate pretty much everything about the walnut trees that wreck our lawns every fall, but it REALLY BUGS ME that they're actually edible but damn near completely inaccessible. The first year we moved back here, we hulled a bag of walnuts (meaning took off the round green part that protects the actual nut--this is different from the shell) and dried them in the barn. After they were dry, they were ready for cracking. But we could not for the life of us figure out a way to crack the ridiculously thick, hard shells that didn't result in the entire nut exploding and sending bits of shell and nut meats all over the damn place.
That's what happens when you smack a black walnut with a hammer, in case you were wondering.
So we have hundreds of pounds of edible nuts that get dumped on the beach or in the gully every year. Irritating. Almost as irritating as spending hours bending over to pick the little bastards up one by one. Which we did yesterday, all three adults and Cubby supervising from his chariot. Such a fun family labor day. We know how to have fun together, yes.
If I wanted to be really annoying, I could make some amusing, chipper comment about the bonding that occurs as a family works together. But the walnuts make me feel distinctly un-chipper, so there will be none of that. Instead I will don my gloves once again, load Cubby into his chariot, and resume the stoop labor of walnut picking.
Yay.
When we were little we used to collect macadamia nuts from my grandparents 5 giant trees. It was the job of The Cousins to collect and crack them. Similar to walnuts, smashing them with a hammer only led to macadamia nut & shell paste on top of whatever we were smashing them against. Until we discovered that Granpa's vices were ideal. He had several large vices. We'd place a bunch of nuts in the vice, slowly turn the handle until they cracked enough to get the shell off and then start all over again. Maybe you could try it with your walnuts?
ReplyDeleteI am SO glad we are not the only ones who have to suffer through Black Walnut season. My grandmother planted the whole south property line of the farm with black walnut trees. Needless to say, 40 years later, they shed branches constantly and the walnuts are a royal pain. They all have to be picked up before you can mow, pick up leaves or perform any other normal lawn task. I really need to find someone who want some really nice walnut lumber!
ReplyDeleteIt is good lumber. Not that I am one to say take a tree down, but take the tree down. We had a beechnut tree that was torture (spiny little buggers) and when it was rotted through the middle we took it down. Best move ever. We now (after 4 years of remediation) can grow things in that back lot next year. I am so excited to get started on my Spring beds. Now if the construction would stop digging up my front lawn every fall. I am promised just one more fall (they are repairing the road). Gas lines last year, Electrical this year and a brand new road next year.
ReplyDeleteI'm with THM, get rid. We have a crappy grapefruit tree in our backyard - it's poorly placed, doesn't fruit and we don't like grapefruit. It's inevitable that it's going to come down (and possibly be replaced by plum trees), because why have that drain on the systems around it? Better to replenish the earth/yourself than go through that.
ReplyDeleteHere. Try this: http://www.nutwizard.com/ or something like it. Where I live, the trees are all puny little nothings, and not nut trees, so I can't say whether it would work. I just can't imagine the agony of stooping over and picking up thousands of walnuts.
ReplyDeleteOkay, for once, I don't envy you.
ReplyDeleteIf you did smash them, would the chickens eat them? Just thinking.
ReplyDeleteMy husband has a walnut cracker made out of a piece of pipe, the size a walnut will fit in) with a piece of flat steel welded on the bottom of the pipe and a plunger deal made out of a steel rod with a smaller round piece of steel welded to it that fits into the inside of the pipe. Drop walnut in pipe put plunger on top hit with hammer to break nut ( no flying bits) you pour out into container and pick out later.
ReplyDeleteAfter you get hull off (we put them in a tread of the driveway and run over them as we drive through , just go through and stir them around with a hoe to loosen them up more and before you mash them totally into the ground)wash in water in wheelbarrow , slosh around and work back and forth with a hoe to get them clean.....any that float aren't good so pitch them (makes it easier not to crack bad ones without good nut meats in them). and prevents getting yuck on you later or in the nut meats.
A. could make one then you could have walnuts in everything you make.
The sooner you get the hulls off of them the more mild the nuts will taste.Beth
Hope that helps.
I have nothing constructive to add, except that I just spent 3 minutes laughing at the phrase "nut meats." I'll let myself out.
ReplyDeleteI would submit that one can take solace in the fact that the horse chesnuts are not as prolific as the black walnuts. Either way it's not a chore that one, or many, endear to harbor. LA&A Railroad
ReplyDeleteI second the comment on the nutwizard. My Grandma uses it and loves it. No stooping required. Just roll it over the ground, it picks up walnuts and then you empty the "cage" into a huge rubbermaid tub.
ReplyDeleteAnd, to hull the walnuts, she puts them in the driveway and runs over them for a couple weeks until the outer shell falls off. (It might help that she has a gravel driveway.)
Oh, the piece of pipe is about 8 inches tall and the flat piece on the bottom is just enough to be bigger than the pipe to make it stand up. And our driveway is gravel , too.
ReplyDeleteDid I ever tell you that before we moved to Mayberry we lived on one acre of land that had 40 mature Pecan trees? And the first year we lived there I thought it would be a brilliant idea to use the unshelled pecans that I raked up as mulch in all the flower beds? And the next year, and every year after that for the 12 years we lived there, I pulled thousands of Pecan saplings out of my flower beds? Yeah. I'm sooooooo smart about agriculture.
ReplyDeleteThere's a nearby neighbor with a black walnut tree. We're close enough to watch the squirrels try to carry and bury the nuts, but not close enough for the tree to destroy my garden.
ReplyDelete