Looks like a good walnut drop this year

Walnut trees near me are hanging full of hulls. Hope the worms have not ruined the nuts.

Has anyone got a good way of cleaning them? Do you leave them on the ground for a while, do you watch the squirrels, do you gather them and spread them to dry, or what do you do.

I have even thought of sawing through them with a band saw, then picking the meat with a dental tool. What works for those you pick out walnuts.

I want a few old fashion black walnut cakes like my grandma made 65 years ago and a gallon of homemade black walnut ice cream, one last time.

Hate to say it, but go buy the walnuts. Cleaning Black Walnuts and getting the meat out is time consuming and a "cracker" can be expensive. I used to scoop up 1000+, spread them in a gravel driveway and run over them to shed the hull. Messy and Walnut stain is hard to get out of anything like shoes if you walk across them . . . especially if they're wet or it rains. :-(

The walnut husk fly maggots don't hurt the nut. They just eat the inside of the husk.

Keith

I recall when I was a kid, dad had a 56 chevy. He'd jack up one back wheel about an inch or so off the ground, chock the front tires, start the engine, put the transmission in first gear (Standard tranny) and feed the walnuts under the tire as it spun. The hulls would fly off and make a mess, but it made simple work of hulling a bunch of black walnuts.

That would make a mess flyin' everywhere! HA!

Here's the nut cracker I use. The G. Gardner Master Nut Cracker. It works very well. I can literally crack a black walnut with a pinkie finger when using it.



Last year was a bad year for black walnuts here, but I still got a fair amount from around a dozen trees on my farm. 7 buckets of walnuts in hulls makes 2 buckets hulled and pressure washed.







Anyone else collecting nuts later this year

Keith

Cool, some are falling already seems early?
Not many in my country now.
But s.d. was a bunch I us to boil traps in them.
Like the old Chevy story.

I have the Hunt's Black Walnut Cracker.

They look like a nice machine. How do you like it?

Keith

It's a quality machine but as with all of them, it's a time consuming process. As I recall, back then, I paid $$89.00 (?) for it. :-)

My Dad used to tell me when he was a kid they would collect Walnuts and roll them around in their hands to see whose hands could get the blackest.

Many years ago I asked a buddy for a burlap sack of them to use for dying traps. He dropped of a bag of them on our front steps after I had left for work. When I got home there was nothing but an empty bag...the squirrels had gotten them all! We still have Walnut trees sprouting in all kinds of odd spots around our yard.

Moosetrot

I only have a few walnut trees but they are pretty full

I like to mess with nuts. Not interested in buying nuts. I got a decent walnut cracker.

My cracker is called ball-peen.

We have a big Black Walnut tree in the yard along with about 4 other trees. I hate it when there is a good yield as I am the one that has to pick them up to mow the grass. The big tree will yield about 10 cart loads of walnuts for me to haul away. At 76 years old it is back breaking work for me. We use very few of them, I have put signs out saying free walnuts and hardly ever get any takers. They are big meaty walnuts I wish I could get someone to pick them up for me.

Does anyone use the hulls for dying traps?

I have used the hauls to dye traps many times. I fill a 5 gallon bucket with walnuts and then dump them on the ground and run over them with my garden tractor, I then scoop them up and put them in the bucket and fill the bucket with traps and water and let it soak for a few days, maybe as many as 6 or 7 days, they get nice and black. I only do that when I have a few traps to do.

I use this. The kids love to roll it around and gather the walnuts. Saves a lot of back bending. :-) Well worth the cost!
BY GARDEN WEASEL
Weasel Lg Nut Gatherer

That is great it sounds like something my grandpa would have done if he had thought of it or saw you and your dad. If anyone ever made even a minor comment on some of his "hillbilly engineering" feats he would always smile and say "Poor people have poor ways".

Now we have a widget for everything- back in the day- you had to find your own way through everything b/c amazon prime wasn't going to have the answer delivered before 4 pm later today

I like Paul Dobbins method too.

I had em flying everywhere at camp today while on the riding mower. Trees on the border of the yard are loaded with them this year.

I fill a 5 gallon bucket half way with green nuts, add just a little water to lift about a inch off the bottom. Then a 4 foot 4x4 is used to mash them. takes about 4 to 5 minutes per batch. dump out and repeat. Wearing skinning gloves I put the hulled nuts in a pile. When all done, I wash them in the buckets then spread out to dry. The hulls are dried and put away for trap dying. To dye traps I use a wire fish basket, fill about half full with hulls, traps go in pot with basket dropped on top like a big tea bag.