Black Walnuts
This is a black walnut tree. Where I live there are bountiful. I have at least four trees dropping nuts right now.
This is a black walnut on the tree. When fall comes they fall to the ground. If you are under one when it falls it might knock you out or leave a nice red mark that turns into a lovely blue-ish/green bruise.
When they are on the ground they need to be harvest. They can be picked up in the hull but that still leaves the need to get them out of the hull and then having to pick up/out the nut.
Picking them up is not a pretty sight. The juice leaves your hands and anything it touches a nice tobacco brown stain that does not wash off. It has to wear off.
To harvest them you can buy one of these expensive things. But still you have to get the nut out of the hull.
I've got one of these. I used it in Georgia to pick up all the pecans that fell from my trees. When we go out to the barn we use our feet to roll the nut out of the yucky hull. After two or more days they are fairly dry.
Steve built a frame for me with a wire bottom. The nuts can sit on here, air can circulate, the nuts can begin to cure.
Black walnuts are alot of work for a little bit of nut meats. The meat has a rich smokey flavor.
I have resented these trees presence since moving here. I miss my pecan trees. Pecans are my favorite to cook with. I once made nearly all of my gifts from my pecans. My trees in Georgia were very old, over 150 years. When I was a kid the nearesr neighbor was a very old man in his late 80's or early 90's who was born in an old house that once stood where our house was in the pecan grove. He told me his grandfather planted the trees. The made the best pecans I have ever had. In a good year 3 of the trees produced over 600 pounds of nuts each.
This year I am trying to embrace the black walnuts that I now have. I am trying to learn to appreciate them. The going is slow. The work is time consuming. I am trying to make the best of it.
I keep telling myself I am sitting on a potential gold mine but it really isn't working.
Maybe I'll make an applesauce cake with real black walnuts.
I just don't know.
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Our neighbor has a walnut tree. Nothing like waking up to the sound of crows dropping the walnuts on our roof to crack the shells.
ooh, oooh, I vote for the cake!!
ooh, oooh, I vote for the cake!!
We had a walnut tree when I was a kid in Ohio, and my mom would get so mad when we tracked that dye into the house on our shoes!
We planted two pecan trees here in the spring of 2006. Of course, it will be many years before they bear nuts, but they're doing really well so far. One of them is a more native variety and we don't have to do a thing to it. The other draws pests and needs a lot of care. I'm hoping to have enough nuts for a pie by the time my first grandchild arrives but that might be wishful thinking!
We used to have a black walnut tree and an English walnut tree. We'd collect the English walnuts and leave the black ones for the squirrels (but even they were less than enthused with dealing with them).
Can you make anything alcoholic out of them? ;-)
We have a black walnut tree in between our neighbours yard and ours. Our neighbour cut it down. Because they are so poisonous to any plantantion around. Everything would just die including the grass
Do you notice this with your tree?