It tried bud but I just couldnt get the camera far enough to get everything in the photo.

That's a large heavy nut. I found one like that under an overpass, in a creek I used to catch minnows out of. What size bolt does it fit on?

Keith

Iirc, it’s for a 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 inch bolt.. I used to make studs that were 12” long and threaded on both ends, it went into a big metal shear at our local scrap iron dealer..

This is how I clean my nuts.

I put the hulled nuts in a 5 gallon bucket of water on a paint/mud stirrer.



I let it run for around 10 minutes to loosen and knock off the fibrous debris on the nuts.



I pour the nuts in a milk crate, that sits on a barrel top, with a big hole cut in it. I then rinse them to wash away the debris.



There's still a fair amount of fiber on the nuts. I float test them by adding water. I pull out the floaters. They aren't good for planting, but are often good to eat still.



I then repeat the process. The nuts don't need to be perfectly clean, pretty clean is good enough. Black walnuts ready for drying.




Heartnuts ready for drying.



Keith

The initial drying of the nuts starts outside. It will go until about dark. The rest of the drying will be inside, to avoid rodents and sun damage.



The hulls have juglone in them, which is toxic to many plants. Walnut use juglone to reduce competition. Juglone quickly breaks down when composted. The composted hulls are extremely high in useable nitrogen, which plants need to survive. The hulls will get covered with raw poultry manure. The next level will be rabbit manure. The top level will be soil, from already composted material, which I will plant in.




Keith

Usually I grill with the nut shells. I found another good use.




Keith

Using shotgun shells as a size reference.... Yep, I am among my people.

I picked up 8 gallons of buartnuts today and smaller amounts of black walnuts, heartnuts, shellbark hickory nuts, hazelnuts and pecans. Yesterday, I started mowing under my black walnut trees, to make collection easier as the nuts will start to drop soon.

I also picked 20 gallons of apples, some Summer pears, spearmint, self-heal/heal-all/woundwort, peppermint, catnip and iron wood seed.

Has anyone else been collecting any nuts, or anything else?

Keith

The squirrels are cutting the hickory nuts now. I have not picked up any yet but will once it cools off a bit.

Just finished up with several large catnip plants a few days ago. Got them trimmed and bundled up to dry. They are on our 2nd floor where it is quite warm this time of year.

My climate is too cold for hazelnut so it grows like a shrub on the edge of my property.
This year, something disassembled the resident chipmunk and left the pieces arranged among my tomatoes.


I thought these things were galls at first, the chipmunk must have gotten to them first in previous years. No idea what to do with them.



My Manchurian nut trees are still small. I plant them everywhere I go.

Buckeyes are going nuts this year. They are yuge.

Juglans mandshurica, the Manchurian walnut, has nuts my that look similar to a buartnut, but which are smaller. People use them in landscaping because they are less allelopathic than other walnuts.

Those hazelnuts may be good to eat still. Usually they are good for at least 3 years.

This year, I had a decent crop of hazelnuts, but the deer took almost all of them in one night.

Keith

A lot of times the bigger husks will hold multiple buckeyes.

Keith

The buartnuts, plus a few black walnuts and heart nuts.





Remembrance elderberries. These were dried and will go into a Wellness tea blend my partner makes.



Some of my apples. I've picked around 100 gallons so far for apple sauce, apple butter, apple jelly, pepper jelly and dried apples. Others will go into canned apples for pie filling.




As early as it is, there were remarkably few floaters out of the nuts. I got a little over 2 gallons of clean nuts and only 3 buartnuts, 2 heartnuts and 5 black walnuts failed the float test, by floating. Floaters usually aren't filled out all the way. Often floaters have leathery nut meat, that tastes surprisingly good, but different from more mature nuts.

Keith

X2

Does anyone know of any market for walnut hulls? I got 6 gallons off of these nuts. I'll probably have upwards of 400 pounds of walnut hulls this season.

Keith