Harvesting Black Walnuts!

Harvest Black walnuts, they're free!

After harvesting and cleaning the black walnuts, I can show you how easy they are to crack when this batch is dry. Here is the video link:

Some warnings, one is cleaning these from the green husk will stain your hands black! Wear high quality rubber gloves.

Pick freshly dropped nuts, the older they are the higher the risk of mold or fungus to infect the husk. I haven't been bothered, but I am healthy with a strong immune system.

Here is information about the toxicity of black walnuts, you might be allergic or something and might suffer if you do what I'm doing, so take it easy in the start.

[barrylitchfield]

Where I grew up in Kansas City we had a black walnut tree right on the corner of our property. I'm 72 now, so that tree is probably long gone. I used to climb that big old tree, but large black ants took over that tree and I stopped climbing it. I Picked up the nuts, and of course got walnut stains all over my self and my clothes. I got the husks off and dried them. Cracked the open with a hammer, picked out the nutmeat and ate a full share myself.
I never messed with those black walnuts again. What a huge pain in the ass for such a small reward!

My mom loved black walnuts, but she wasn't too happy about the clothes I ruined, and the walnut stains on my hands and arms. She made cookies with the nuts that were left after I had already eaten my share.

Now, occasionally I see black walnut ice cream, and I'll take a trip down memory lane by eating an ice cream cone with black walnut ice cream.

Thanks for posting and reminding me of a memory from my childhood.

[Whitebear]

Growing up in E. TN in the 40s-50s and 60s, I grew up liking the taste of the nut after the husk turned black and had dried. We laid out bushels of them in the yard to dry for a couple weeks then took them out to the gravel driveway and covered the driveway with them so no one or thing coming or going had to drive over them. After another week or so they were ready to crack. The husks had all been ground and washed away by the vehicles and elements. We cracked them with a hammer and a piece of rail road track. Out of 4 bushels of in husk nuts we got about a bushel and a half of uncracked nuts and when cracked we had enough nut meats to last all year for any of mom's cooking. They was used in ham salad for sammiches, in Ice Creams, on pancakes, in pies and anything else Mom wanted to taste really good.

[gig]

I have found that the standard latex gloves that you buy in the grocery store will still allow the stain to bleed through, although they are better protection than nothing. They don't last real long either if processing a lot of walnuts. I finally just spent the extra money and bought a pair of PVC coated gloves from the hardware store. They are rugged and don't allow any "bleed through".

[janekhasselblad]

You can also use the sap from Black Walnut trees to make walnut syrup!

[goldfishgames]

Where I live there are approx 6-10 trees with those large trunks. Every property owner not just gives permission for me to take the fruits, they practically set appointment times in hopes I’ll come clean them up (in their eyes), lol. I harvested these with my Mom and family in my childhood for years. The smell and finally the taste can bring tears to my eyes, memories of family times when everyone was alive.

[eccentricdetectorists]

Seems like very very very laborious project. I didn't know anyone did this anymore. This is kind of a lost dead thing. Glad you're taking the time to share an keep it alive.

[ranamanathabascarohipalepa]

My Great Aunt used to line her nuts with hulls on them in her paved driveway in two lines and drive her Lincoln over them until the hulls were removed. Getting out and adjusting them and then slowly back and forth up and down the driveway. She then used an old old tub style washing machine that had a wringer on it that she didn't use. She kept it in the garage just for the walnuts and washed them in the machine a couple times until clean.

[CrankyBubushka]

I want to try this one day. So many people don't know that it is a very healthy and nutritious food and it is practically free.

[semco]

We have many walnut trees near my home and we ate them regularly when growing up, but have not eaten them in many years. The squirrels love the walnuts and the deer love the acorns, and the birds love the persimmons from the other trees. We also have polk salad growing all over the place and I could be eating all that and also the berries which grow on our property. We also have hickory nuts growing on the tree on our property and I love them also.

[benjamingrezik]

Here in my home town in Oregon there is a 120 year old black walnut tree brought by settlers and planted. Is about 5 stories tall. so maybe 60-80 feet tall.

It dumps big fruit like yours, and lots. This year I have collected avout 16 bushels from this one tree and theres about 20x that much on the ground and around it.

These are absolutely incredible plants.

[mrpush]

Hi, well this is an ok method if you don't have many nuts or too much to do. I had a couple hundred pounds of nuts, and so this is what I did.

1.) Let the hull get mushy, a little green is ok
2.) Got a metal garbage can, and HD 1/2" drill, and a 6 or 8" drywall "mud" paddle. Fill can 1/3 ish full of nuts, and fill to about 2/3 with water. Run the paddle stirring the mix for about 2 minutes, check the amount of dehulling. Go another 2 minutes. Drain through some chicken wire tacked between 2x4's. Push the nuts around to get them separated from the hull pieces.
If your not happy with results, you can hit them again in the can. 2-5 min does a pretty good job!

3.) Did a final quick pressure washing to make sure they were clean. A few will have "greeners" stuck to them but a pressure washer take em off.
4.) Put them out flat in front of fan for a week or two.

The nuts are clean an dry. They will still continue to dry for several weeks, but I found they were at a good moisture content after just 1 month with being in front of fan for 7-14 days.

Store them in VENTILATED sacks, like mesh fruit sacks or "washing machine" bags. They supposedly will last for up to 4 years.

YUM. Get some to the kids, with hammers and safety glasses and tell a few old stories about your grand parents while you crack and eat!

There is something neat about it!

[MrChickadee]

it was refreshing to see a video of this without the electric drill!

[donahim]

I've been living at my current address for about 7 years now. And I had absolutely NO idea what the heck those green balls were that fell from this odd tree and they covered my whole driveway and back yard till my building manager told me they're walnuts! And that's what the squirrels are eating. After that I've always been curious how I can harvest these cause I've never done this before.
This tree is so heeeeuge! But the green balls on mine are small for such a big tree. I'm rather glad of that because I don't want these to damage my car whenever I pull in or out of the garage. I really wanted to look into this!!! And thank you for your vlog!!!💕💕💕

[mckennapatrick]

Walnuts make a cool natural dye for clothing! Super cool

[victorcastle]

Thanks for the video and info. I wish someone wanted to pick up all the walnuts laying around the yard, where we mow ( about 5 acres with walnuts every where.
I have taped and made Maple syrup, but never thought about the Walnuts.
I liked your stove, made it a lot better than the old very large cast iron kettle we used. Had to keep skimming the foam off, because the smoke would ruin the syrup .

Thanks again

[kathleengibson]

Thank you Rick for your video.... I just happen to have a friend who lives out in the country who has a Black Walnut tree.... He was busy mowing his property and I noticed all the walnuts on the ground and on the trees ! ... I googled on how to hull them.... I used the long yellow gloves and started to break them open on a board with the heal of my rubber boots five at a time tossed them in a pail and washed I noticed when I filtered the water onto the grass a ton of earthworms started to surround me...??? I guess they didn't like the toxin produced from the wash off water ?? .... I bought some cheescloth and brought them home and they are now hanging up.... now I have to wait for 2 weeks or Sure hope that they turn out I bake a lot of cookies and pumpkin bread around Christmas time so I hope that all the work done in hulling these babies will be worthwhile ! By the way, my friend had no interest in what I was I think he thinks I am "Nuts"...

[yvolemo]

Thanks so much for the video. It is so detail.
We got about 5 huge trees in front of our place on the street.
Nuts drop like weapon!!
They always drop with the green outer fruit, not like other types of walnuts, only drop the nuts.
I am gonna learn from your way and collect them.
So they won't grow everywhere next year. :)
Thank you!! xx

[ruprechtrw]

After husking throw them into a cement mixer, it does a very nice job of cleaning.

[jenniferstrausser]

Rick Larson, I have to say I looked at a bunch of videos on how to get rid of the hull of the walnut and there is some pretty crazy stuff out there, one guy did it with a pressure washer ( which does me no good because I don't have one!!) and then I see your video and your as cool as a cucumber with the speed of a cheetah!!! I bet you can shuck the hell out of oysters too!! Well

[baronratfish]

Excellent video! I love black walnuts. Been harvesting since '11. After I shuck em. I blast em clean with a power washer. I put em in a wire basket and blast away. Works great! I have nuts that are 3 yrs old and still delicious.