This summer, well actually mid fall I managed to eventually collect a half a bucket of black walnuts. I had been talking about it a while and kept on procrastinating. It got to the point that wherever I looked for them it was too late.
But one day, on my way to a job site I decided to stop where I knew there was a lonely black walnut tree and guess what? There were loads of them on the ground still fresh under the tall grass. I wonder if they were protected by all the insulated power the grass was giving off! All I had to do was walk around under this tree to feel these tennis ball sized nuts under my feet and pick them up and throw them in the back of the truck.
I was happy to have found these delicious nuts again. I mean they aren't hard to find really, it's all about making the time to go harvest these things... there are quite a lot of these trees in our area. people hate them because when the nuts fall off they can definitely dent a car like hail can do sometimes! And they stain the driveways. So you can imagine that people will gladly let us go on their property to clean up so they don't have to!
Just can't be lazy about it, and this year I kind of was a bit. Even when it cam to processing them, I got lazy. That's the thing about wild foods, you need to process stuff... it's not quite as easy as shopping, but it's so much better for you than the garbage we find in stores!
The way I've learned to do this is by letting the bugs eat through the outer shell (the greenish yellow husk), it helps to have it decompose so that it can be easier to peel off. And the way I do that is to crush them on the driveway with my foot and roll it around in circles until most of it is off. Sure it stains my shoe and the driveway, but it eventually wears off.
This year I let them dry a bit too much before starting the process butt hat seems to have been ok. Only time will tell, because now I still have to wash them and dry them. The drying part is the curing I guess. The nut shrinks inside its shell as it dries and it tastes better and crunchy like a regular walnut. Though the taste is different, it has a distinctive taste that you can never forget once you taste it.
Here look at this image after the husk has been crushed and rubbed off the shell... It's not as bad as it usually is, because I had let them dry up more than I typically do. But you can still see how black the ground became... and that's going o stay for a few weeks. Well not the husks, those I already swept up, but the stain will remain!
Have you ever had black walnut? Let me know what you think... I love them and was very excited when I finally dedicated some time to harvest them!
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I haven't heard about black walnut before but I love the way you didn't bother about it staining your car but gave it a time to dry from its flesh before proceeding to remove the nuts
lol thanks! Though it wasn't going to stain the car when they were young still. It's just the driveway and the rain will take care of cleaning it up
That's a nice harvest !
The way I get the husks off is by putting some latex gloves on and using a sharp knife to slice around them while they are still fresh and green. Then you can put the husks in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer.
Later on when you've got time, you can use them to dye fabric, especially wool, leather and other animal-derived materials. You don't even need a mordant, and it makes a lovely brown dye.
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Ok excellent info. It's pretty quick the way I do it and I don't have a need for dye really. Tho last year I tried to use it as a wood stain on pine... it wasn't that great a color really. Maybe too watered down, I don't know.
I do like your idea of freezing the husk for later tho.
How do you break them open when you're ready to eat 'em?
I've got a heavy-duty nutcracker to break them open. I mostly use it on hazelnuts (if the squirrels leave any for us...), because it can crack three or four at the same time. But with walnuts it'll only do one at a time, and they're always a bit fiddly. I have been known to just use a hammer sometimes 😁
I'll have to try to remember to keep the shells from next year's harvest, apparently they've got lots of uses, especially crushed up for burnishing and polishing.
Walnuts are one of my favourite trees, every part is useful one way or another, but the leaves and husks are high in juglone which can harm some other plants (a kind of natural weed killer, used by walnut trees to gain an edge), so I try to avoid composting them or using them as a mulch.
Yeah I've just used a hammer to crack them open. They are a pain in the ass tho, if you're not careful the meat will get pulverized lol. I never tried a heavy duty nut cracker, but this is only my second year doing it!
I knew about the natural weed killer it contains, so I throw everything out into the garbage for now. Thanks for the tip tho. We get free woodchips for mulch when we need it from tree service people.