(Strike at a 90-degree angle to the seam until the nut cracks). Crack the shell with a hammer to get to the nut meat. You can store them unshelled up to a year. Hose down the nuts in a large bucket to remove any remaining husk.ĭry the walnuts for a couple of weeks on a screen or drying rack or in a hanging mesh bag. If the nut is too hard, wait a few days and it will brown and soften up.) To remove the husk, you can simply step on them gently with an old pair of shoes. Wear gloves as the husks stain your hands (and anything they touch). To harvest, collect the nuts as soon as possible to avoid mold and remove the husks immediately. They can also be toppings on ice cream and cakes, enjoyed as a sweetened candy nut, or ground into meal for a unique flour. The sweet, earthy nutmeat inside is well worth the effort. Your grandparents may have harvested the walnuts which can be eaten raw or added to baking (cookies and bars). ( Note: Black Walnuts are different than the English Walnuts more commonly sold in stores and shown in the photo above.) If you’re willing to do the work of cracking the outer shell, the “meat” inside is edible, as the squirrels will attest squirrels have little problem chewing through the shells. Anderson Harvesting and Eating Black Walnuts Hire the kid down the street to pick up those the dropped walnuts (just be careful not to pay per nut-you’ll go broke)! Photo Credit: John A. If you don’t remove the nuts, you’ll trip over them in the dark for the rest of the year (while they rot and mold on your lawn). Walnut tree owners will spend hours picking up the fruit some years. It makes quite a mess and can be viewed as a nuisance. The size of a baseball and colored lime green, the fruit is quite heavy. Thud! Thud! Most walnut tree owners have a love/hate relationship because of the fruit which the tree drops in late summer though October. They are pretty much disease-free and are threatened by few pests. In autumn, the leaves turn bright yellow, contrasting nicely with the tree’s rugged, dark bark.īlack walnuts require a deep, fertile soil with a near-neutral or slightly acidic pH. They commonly grow to 50 feet or taller and about as wide, but specimens of more than 100 feet have been recorded.īlack walnut’s large, fernlike foliage provides light, airy shade for those grasses and ground covers not affected by juglone. In spite of this, black walnuts make great shade trees for larger properties. Plan your landscaping accordingly! A Great Shade Tree Tomatoes, potatoes, apples, pears, berries, and some landscape plants such as rhododendrons, azaleas, and lilacs may be killed or stunted if grown in close proximity to black walnut roots or within the tree’s drip line (i.e., under the tree’s canopy). It inhibits many plants’ growth under and around the tree, thereby limiting the tree’s competition, leaving more water and nutrients for itself. This substance is also found in the tree’s leaves and fruit husks. Settlers snacked on the nutritious walnuts out of hand, added them to soups and stews, and ground them into meal for baking the hard shells provided a perfect package for storing the nuts over winter.Īlthough the black walnut has many uses and benefits, the tree does come with a caveat: the black walnut’s roots, which may extend 50 feet or more from the trunk, exude a natural herbicide known as juglone. When planted in the open, the tree will branch out closer to the ground, developing a spreading shape that makes it easier to harvest its sweet, round, two- to three-inch nuts. When surrounded by other trees in the forest, black walnuts grow straight and tall with few, if any, lower branches. They found that its rich-brown heartwood was exceptionally resistant to decay and put it to use as fence posts, poles, shingles, and sills. The early settlers discovered black walnuts growing in mixed forests from Canada to northern Florida and west to the Great Plains. Its logs are in such demand for veneer that “walnut rustlers” have made off with trees in the dead of night and even used helicopters in their operations. The easily worked, close-grained wood of the black walnut has long been prized by furniture- and cabinetmakers for its attractive color and exceptional durability. Advertisement Facts About the Black Walnut Tree
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