What to do with Black Walnuts?

We have two very large black walnut trees. It looks as though we'll have a bumper crop this year. We don't eat the nuts, but as many as we have, I wondered if there's a way to gather them to share with others to start their own trees. If so, when would I gather them, and what would I do with them in order to share? There are some smaller green ones falling off the trees now, and of course later, there will be masses of the larger brown ones dropping. Should I collect the green ones, or wait until later for the brown ones?
Thanks!

This message was edited Jul 18, 2005 8:36 AM

wait for the brown ones

An older Amish gentleman comes through our neighborhood collecting walnuts from folks who don't plan to harvest them.

I've seen people put them in old sacks (burlap, pillowcases) and run them over a few times with the car to get to the meat.

We set them out in the attic in the brown shells for 4 weeks or so until they "crack" through and then picking out the walnut is easy. The best way to share is to give a tray (like one that holds pop cans) full and have them sit it aside for a while.

Many thanks to all of you! We've always just raked them up and dumped them in the farthest part of the back yard for the squirrels. I'll still do that with some of them, but now I know how to share some, too.

be careful the roots have toxins and the husks might to.. they kill most plants in the ground sround them! Mitch

The husks don't do too much damage. Thank goodness. Because squirrels like to bury them in flower and veggie beds.

You could donate them to a wildlife rehabber, wildlife center or park to feed the animals with.

Black Walnut ice cream, black walnuts in banana bread, black walnuts in fudge, black walnuts in ANYTHING!!! Sorry, I got carried away, it's my favorite nut...or could you tell? LOL
Pati

Black Walnuts are absolutely wonderful... I have quite a few trees, but hardly any nuts from them this year. Even if you don't want to eat them yourselves and bake wonderful things, try cracking them and picking them... picked out walnuts make wonderful gifts.

To hulll them easier put them in a driveway and run over them with a vehicle. A few of them may crack , but in general it is a great way to remove the green hull . move them after the hull is gone and let them dry. If they are drier , they are easier to pick out. You can also hull them with an old corn sheller. The kind that has a hand crank.

Mine always fall when they're still green. What's with that??

RainGazer, those trees are magnificent!!! I will gladly trade you a mountain of kudzu in exchange for your unwanted walnuts!!! haha

Seriously, you need to check out the prices on black walnuts in the stores - they are very, very expensive. I think they would make a nice Christmas gift to folks you want to give something to - but don't know well enough to get them something personal.

Like pattischell said - those walnuts are good in fudge, banana bread - all kinds of things. Maybe you could check out back where you have been dumping those old nuts and see if you have any new trees sprouted? You could trade the saplings on the plant trading forum for just about anything you need in your gardens.

CaptMicha...........we used to go out and pick up black walnuts with my dad when I was a kid. They were green sometimes and sometimes they were not. Usually, from what I remember, the outter soft shell starts out green and then kinda rots or deterriorates, exposing the hard black walnut inside. We used to just let them sit in a dry place until the outter soft shell rotted (dryed up) and then let them dry a little longer and crack them with a hammer on concrete, (they're really hard shelled) They are really good, but not so easy to get the meat out. Guess that's why so expensive when purchased at store for those special recipes. As that green outter soft shell dries, it will turn black and crumbly.

Living and learning as I go..................................PeggieK

Then I know know what I'm going to be doing for this fall (gathering black walnuts) if the insects and animals didn't get to them yet!

I'm probably going to donate a lot to be fed to rehabbed squirrels anyways. Lol.

We used to go with my dad to look for these, too. He would put them between screens in the driveway until they turned black (they were usually green when we got them off the ground), then us kids would pull the black husk off...beware...they stain your hands yellow. Imagine the embarrassment of going to school with yellow hands. I used to get picked on...it doesn't take much imagination to figure out about what. Anyway, we would then move them to the attic to dry longer after the husks were off, then my father would crack them with a hammer.

I never really did care for them much.

Lol. I wonder why?

Make candy and cakes and add walnuts.
Take the hulls and make paint stain. Makes a beautiful finish.
My grandmother made hair dye with the hulls. LOL

My mother used the green hulls to treat my exzema when I was an infant. An old mountain folk remedy.....and it worked!
Pati

Wow, what a bunch of great ideas! We don't particularly care for the walnuts, and I'm not so hip on having stained hands, either. I can only imagine the cruelty of the other kids, KiM. The squirrels have been doing a number on them, which I really enjoy watching, so I'll probably just let them take care of as many as they will.

hmstyl, I am lucky enough not to have any kudzu here at home, but all I have to do is drive to the end of the street and see all I could ever want to see! LOL That stuff is EVERYWHERE! Wish my other plants would grow like kudzu does.

I've been dropping the walnuts in the back of our yard, over a little wall, and I just know it's filled with snakes (whether it is or not isn't the point - I'm convinced, so they're there...LOL) so I won't be going to check on those. How would I plant them to get them to germinate? I wouldn't mind doing that, and I've got more than enough to share with every single DG member and then some. I actually wasn't sure if anyone would be interested in the trees. My neighbors complained about theirs not producing many this year. Evidently all the other trees sent theirs to mine, cause it's a bumper crop out there. When the remnants of Hurricane Katrina moved through, I lost a huge limb from one of the trees because of the weight of all the walnuts, and one of the smaller trees in the very back of the yard snapped completely in half.

As far as putting them in the driveway, to be completely honest, I hate having to rake them up once, much less having to do it twice. :o) I have offered to numerous people in past years to come and pick up as many as they'd like. Everyone seems thrilled at the idea of getting them, but I've yet to see one person pick up one walnut. Oh well...

Thanks again for all the great information!
Amy

I know that black walnuts are work, but, the rewards are great. Every year as far as I remember I would help my mother and grandmother gather them and let them dry, shell, and crack and pick the meat. Last year due to back surgery I couldn't get to the nuts to peel, and crack them. In the spring I went to the garage to get them and I had empty buckets, not 1 nut in sight.Asking my DH what he did with the nuts,he, said I didn't touch them. So we started to look,,,,,,,,,Seem one of our local squirrels had helped himself, they were all lined up on the rafters in the garage(3 car)
We left them there he worked to hard not to have them. This year they are going into the basement

This year's crop is very heavy and probably more than half have a thick soft hull [green or yellow] that splits under foot easily. Using good rubber gloves and letting them dry off on a screen in back they are ready to be spread out indoors for a while. If they don't get dried enough first, they will mold some.

Some years the walnuts are small and tightly hulled...not good. Other years the same tree has larger ones that hull easily. I have one tree that has large juicy hulls that are almost black when they fall.

I'm confused about when to drive over them.... A friend has ones under her tree that have already lost the thick outer hull. She brought some over the other day, and we cracked them with a hammer to get them out of their shells. Is it the inner shells that you're supposed to crack by driving over them, or is that just to get the outer green/black husk off? Hard as the shells are, I can't imagine that the nut meats wouldn't be smashed to irrecoverable smithereens if you drove over them.

??

Critter, you want to let them dry a little until the outer shell is turning black and then drive over them. This helps clean the outer shell off. If you don't your hands will get a nice dark stain that will take a while to come off, then let them dry for a few more days then crack them with a hammer

Dang. I was hoping it was the *inner* shells that I could crack by driving over them! A hammer does work, but they are a tough nut to crack!

Well, we've got so many of them and with all the raves ya'll are giving them, I guess I'll just have to crack a few to see how yummy they are. You wore me down, after all! Maybe I'll actually appreciate those trees after that. My kids have discovered it's fun to step on them (with old shoes, of course) and squish the outer covering off. Whatever gets them to help, I guess. We might try staining something (other than our hands and good clothes) with them, too.
Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Also not to be missed - this is a highly prized wood - when cured properly - and made into furniture it is beautiful. Also companies the make vaneer are willing to pay hansomely for the trees.

We have (or had, depending on whether or not our opinions are changed) plans to have them cut down. If we do, my husband wants to save some of the wood for a handcarved mantle. He wants to do the carving himself. He loves to build things, and I think he does a spectacular job of it, so I'd be quite anxious to see what he'd come up with. He'd have a lot of fun working with that wood, so either way, keep them because we like them or cut them down for the wood, we'll get some pleasure out of them. Always the optimist, I am! LOL

Darn! DON"T burn the bigger logs for firewood! Worth too much money!

Darius please read the post above hers

Yes, I saw yours Dyson. Was just reinforcing it.

One year, I saw "buttons" for a jacket that were made of slices of black walnuts (the nuts, not the wood). Man, were they cool! Still wish I had bought a few.

Oh heavens no! We wouldn't burn them! I actually anticipate having pretty much all of it made into furniture for us. Like I said, my husband loves to build things, so he'd have fun with that. I don't particularly like the dark color of walnut wood, but he does, so he'd have free reign to build whatever "he" wanted for himself. A desk or a shelf for his fire collectibles or something along those lines. Both of our pianos are very, very dark wood, so I'm sure he'd make something to go in the same room with them. Thanks for looking out for me, though, darius! I'm prone to doing silly things such as that, then regretting them later! LOL

Oh, now that button idea is just too cool, darius! How were they made? That's something I'd like to try.

RainGazer, they were just slices through the nut, and 2 tiny drilled holes to fasten them to some fabric. Maybe 1/8" thick.

RainGazer, they were just slices through the nut, and 2 tiny drilled holes to fasten them to some fabric. Maybe 1/8" thick. I think sliced across the nut rather than from the top.

The nut, being the hard inner shell, uncracked?

Yep.

Well, I'll just have to see about making some of those. I'll get my husband to teach me how to do that. He might even get some kind of new tool out of the deal. I'll let you know if it works out. If we're able to do it, I'll send you some pics so you can confirm they're what you're talking about. Thanks for the idea!

RainGazer, I'm pretty sure they were sawn with a band saw and then sanded.

But, looking forward to what you make!

I'm sure this goes without saying, but clamp that nut in place when you saw it.... do not even *think* of holding it up to the sawblade with your fingers... and wear safety glasses! Those shells can produce flying shrapnel when you hit 'em with a hammer, so I can imagine how a power saw might send chips flying. Be safe!

I wonder if it might be easier to used cracked halves of the shell for the buttons.... you could press them against a belt sander to thin the half down to a "slice" maybe, and then drill your holes for the thread.

Possibly I shouldn't even try to figure something like this out at this time of night.....

:-)

as fate would have it, a lady in my area advertised free black walnuts! I immediately called her and she said she had a giant tree and walnuts all over the ground, that I could come and pick up as many as I wanted. A man had just been there and picked up about 30 bushels, and was going to sell them at his produce stand, so she suggested I wait a week until more nuts fell to the ground. So I did.

I went over and got 4 boxes of black walnuts. She told me that she had given some to an older woman and that woman said when she was a little girl her mother used to put the nuts in a wheelbarrow and fill it up with water to soak the outer husk off the nuts. She stirred them up with a hoe. When the nuts were husked, her momma would spread the nuts on a pan and put them in the oven on warm (not hot) and warming up the shells made it easier to remove the nut meats from the shell.

I thought - A HA! Some times these old timers have ways of doing things that are so much better. This would be better than putting them in the driveway and driving over them and having to wait for days and pick them all up again.

I soaked one box of nuts overnight and put on my plastic gardening gloves and most of the husks came right off. Then I took off my gloves and found out that the wet husks has seeped in through the seams of my gloves and my hands are stained brown! That was Sunday. I cleaned my hands with the hand cleaner mechanics used, I've washed several loads of dishes with hot soapy water. I scrubbed them with a nail brush until my skin hurt. This is Wednesday and my hands are still very brown - especially my thumbs!

Since then I took the rest of the nuts out and spread them in the driveway and we have been driving over them for days. Anybody have any idea about how to remove the black walnut stain?