Fall Harvest - Black Walnuts

Fall has finally arrived and the days are starting to cool off here in Kansas. Everywhere I look, in the streets, on the sidewalks and in peoples yards, it seems that there are reminders of a task I still need to complete...harvest the Black Walnuts!

Since Black Walnut trees only produce nuts in quantity every other year, I need to gather enough to last my family for two years. Fortunately, there are lots of Black Walnut trees in this area and it seems my only competition for the nuts are the squirrels.

My first stop is this old tree in my parents backyard.

I think my brother and I are responsible for this tree being here. When we were kids, we had no tree, but my Dad would bring home buckets of Black Walnuts in the fall and it would be our job to hull and clean the nuts. My brother and I could not work together very long before we would get into a squabble over some silly thing and pretty soon we were at opposite ends of the yard chucking walnuts (or dirt clods, sticks, rocks, pretty much anything we could get our hands on) at each other. This meant more than a few nuts were scattered about the yard. A few years later, we had a nice sized Black Walnut tree of our own.

Scattered about under the tree are an abundance of nuts.

Harvesting Black Walnuts takes a bit of work and you need the right tools. An old pair of shoes, old clothes to wear, a wheelbarrow, a hose with running water and most importantly a good pair of thick rubber gloves.

The hulls of Black Walnuts contain a very dark stain that is almost permanent on clothes and will last for weeks on skin. So good gloves are a necessity.

The process of gathering and hulling the nuts is a bit of work. First stomp on the nut to break open the hull.

Then pick up the nut, tear off the hull and toss the nut into the wheelbarrow.

After a couple hours of work you should have enough in the wheelbarrow to start cleaning the nuts. Grab your water hose and fill the wheelbarrow until the nuts are covered.

Swirl the nuts around a little bit then pick out all the nuts that are floating and discard them. If a nut floats, then the meat inside hasn't developed and isn't worth the effort of cracking and picking. With your gloved hands start rubbing the walnuts together to scrub the remaining hull from the hard shell. Drain the wheelbarrow and refill with clean water and repeat the rubbing. Once the nuts are fairly clean, scoop them up and place in a bag and hang up to dry for a day or two.

You could spread them out on a clean surface to dry, but I find you will attract a lot of squirrels looking to take advantage of your hard work, so I prefer to hang them up.

Then store them in a cool dry place until your ready to crack them open and make a treat.

Until next time...