I went and checked a couple of places I have access to for nuts today. The trees look good. The nut crop crop looks good. The squirrel crop looks too large. Last year, the squirrels left nearly nothing for me. I am going to have to check and collect frequently.

Buckeye nuts in the hull. I took these off the tree, because there was give in the hull when I squeezed them. All the hulls on the ground were empty, probably because of the too many squirrels.



The buckeyes that were in those hulls. There were a lot of doubles.



Shagbark hickory nuts. Most have bug damage. The main drop is probably 2 weeks off.



Keith

Here's my nuts. 2,220 bur oak, ready to plant.

That's a nice haul of acorns. Are you putting the burr oak acorns in air pruning beds, pots or where you want them permanently?

There seems to be no acorns near here this year. My partner can hopefully get some in Wilmington.

I'm going to hunt a good friend's woods this week for nuts and plants. It's still early on most nuts here yet. I want to dig and pot up at least 100 more gooseberry bushes. I dug and potted a bunch in May. I cut them back to a few inches and they mostly look great now, with 20 some inches of new growth on many of them. I think I will likely sell through those this next month. It's nice to be able to pull a plant out of a section of woods, that is getting bulldozed, pot it up and sell it for $20.00 to $30.00 a few months later. Even counting watering, I only have a few minutes labor in each plant.

Keith

I'll direct seed them in their desired permanent location Keith.

It took 5 evenings to gather that many..probably 45 minutes of hand picking each of those 5 straight nights. All from 1 tree. I could have gotten a lot more under that tree. Interestingly, the two bur oaks next to it weren't dropping at all.

I might plant a bunch tomorrow before it rains.

so how are the nuts that you plant straight into the ground working out for you AJE

keith does a person have to knock off or take off the outer cover on the nuts, like walnuts and ?

If you're just planting the nuts immediately, you can leave the hulls on. I did that with a few hundred pounds last year and had decent germination rates.

For eating, it's best to take the hull off. I smash the hulls between 2 stones, so they come off easily and then put the nuts in a 5 gallon bucket of water on a paint mixer. I run them for 20 or so minutes, rinse them, run them for 20 or so minutes again and rinse again. Than I dry them on racks, usually starting outside and finishing inside.

Unprotected nuts, outside, can disappear amazingly quick. I had a couple of hundred black walnuts disappear in a day once, when I was in my preteens. Chipmunks took them and packed them in a rock pile. I took the pile apart and got most of my nuts back.

Keith

My Chinese chestnuts had a rough year. Bad freezes during first growth and then three months of drought. Won't get many this year but they're coming along. Probably 5-6 weeks till drop

Chestnuts here are a little earlier. We are having our Fall meeting for the Ohio Nut Growers Association on 9/26/2026 at the Route 9 Cooperative/Empire Chestnut Company. I am a trustee in ONGA. I believe they officially open the you pick the day before. They have well over 100 acres of chestnut trees. Ohio and Michigan are the top two chestnut producing states.

I plan on buying a bunch of chestnuts to plant and some to resell.

Route 9 sells chestnut trees cheap. At our Spring meet, they sold ONGA members 7' plus trees for $15.00, which is one heck of a deal. I don't know if that's their regular price, but somewhat doubt it is.

Keith

wow that is a great price

My first thought was to buy all of the chestnut trees and resell them. My partner, for my nursery, asked why they were so cheap and I got thinking about it. I figured they were trying to get them out to all the members, to get them into chestnuts, in a charitable fashion. I decided not to be greedy and buy and flip them. I thought I'll just buy what's leftover. There was none leftover, out of what was a considerable number of trees. I regret not buying a few to plant here. I still think I made the right decision, even though it cost me.

At our Spring scion swap, many different people give away hundreds of scions for grafting and cuttings for rooting. Many people donate to our auctions, including myself. ONGA is a really good organization with a lot of very kind, very bright, very knowledgeable members. I'm proud they voted me a trustee.

Keith

So-so. I wish I had stats to back it up. I plant mine quite randomly.

I don't plant any with caps.

The nuts are starting to fall much more rapidly. I picked up just a little under 15 gallons of shagbark hickory nuts this week, plus 23 gallons of buartnuts, some heartnuts, some black walnuts, some buckeyes and 1 hican.

I ended up with a little over 17 pounds of shagbark hickory nuts, once I got the hulls off. Only a little over 3 pounds sunk, passing the float test. I'm going to run the 14 pounds that floated in a dehydrator at 145 and crack and eat them, if they are any good. The other 3 pounds I'll plant.



Most of the shagbark nuts are still in the trees. I'm hoping these first nuts were the worst ones and that the ones that drop later are better.

Fresh, drying shagbark nuts smell fantastic. I really like the taste of them too.

Keith

For anyone interested in selling large amounts of black walnuts this year, this website lists the purchasing locations.

https://black-walnuts.com/discover-harvesting-and-hulling/hulling-and-buying-locations/

They have not stated this year's price per pound yet. Last year it was 13 cents a pound, once they hulled the nuts.

Keith

Good posts. Thanks

You're welcome. You have some good posts too.

Keith

Keith - the Hammons place here by Stockton is the largest buyer and handler of black walnuts in world. They give nice tours and show also how ALL of the products from the black walnuts are utilized. Pretty neat factory and nice to think something utilized with no waste. Around here there is walnut buying stations scattered around the country but most folks anymore too lazy to pick up their nuts

Today, I collected small amounts of shellbark hickory nuts, pecans and hicans and decent amounts of named varieties of black walnuts, buartnuts and heartnuts.

Saturday we had our Fall meeting for ONGA. I got to vote for the first time in our board meeting. I'm in charge of our Gwynne planting now. I am giving our Portage County presentation next Spring. I have to supply at least 200 trees for it.

The meeting was at the Route 9 Cooperative, which is the largest producer of chestnuts in the US. I bought 10 gallons of Chinese chestnuts and 8 ounces of chinkapins, mostly to plant.

My partner and I also sold trees and other plants at it.

Cold hardy pecans.



Hicans



Shellbark hickory nuts compared to hicans.



Hicans are a cross between shellbark hickory and pecan. They can be immense. These are medium large. The largest varieties of hicans are called king nuts. They can be so large only 3 will fit in your open hand. They are the largest nut we can grow in the Eastern US.

Keith

This is interesting, but I still think you’re a little nuts.