Black walnuts

[44man]

Crazy trees. Too many in my yard. I must have picked up 5000 of the things so far. My daughter takes bags for the squirrels at her place. Carol cracks them for us. The wind was blowing hard and they were bouncing off the roof and all around me but none conked me in the head.
My woods is full of them too and squirrels eat them on my shooting bench. Hard to walk.
I use a pooper scooper to pick them up and wish there was an easier way.

[DougGuy]

I buy them at the store hard to get any easier than that.. :bigsmyl2:

[Freightman]

Still have to pick them up,pecans are my problem,people want them till they find out they still have shells.

[Baja_Traveler]

Nice problem to have - My trees arent so crazy yet - they have only been in the ground 10 years, but this year I hit my milestone of filling a 5 gallon bucket of macadamia nuts. I snack on them every day...

[DougGuy]

Still have to pick them up,pecans are my problem,people want them till they find out they still have shells.

I picked some yesterday morning after the storm blew through and knocked some down. There is a small grove of maybe 12-16 trees in a local park and you gotta be early in the am to get any, lots of folks come and bring all their kids and they don't leave none for the squirrels even.

When I was a kid in Mississippi we had 110 pecan trees in the back 8 acres, I was remembering my dad would pay 4c/lb for pickers, and the blacks used to come from across the rr tracks and pick all day and back then 4.00 for a hunnert pound sack was GOOD money for a day's work! There was a guy from New York that always came down pulling a trailer and bought all our crop every year.

Now the house I grew up in is a law office, and all but 2-3 of the trees are gone and there is a small office park with a bunch of buildings on the property. Ours was 8 acres out of hundreds that used to be a HUGE pecan grove in the early 20th century, must have been a few thousand trees.

Better enjoy little things like pecans and black walnuts when you can, and don't take nothing for granted.

[Mk42gunner]

I'd rather have hickory trees in my yard than the walnuts I do have, at least I like the taste of hickory nuts. Pecans would be good too.

The bad thing about black walnuts is if you don't get them all, you will find it with the lawn mower next year. I have never broken a window, yet, but I have launched a few over the years.

Robert

[toallmy]

A lot of broker windows from black walnuts over the years around here , pecans kinda look bad this year . This year my wife planted a couple Chinese chestnut trees , guess we should have done that 20 years ago .

[Lloyd Smale]

heck if you have to many trees sell one or two. Black walnut trees bring good money!

[bobthenailer]

Crazy trees. Too many in my yard. I must have picked up 5000 of the things so far. My daughter takes bags for the squirrels at her place. Carol cracks them for us. The wind was blowing hard and they were bouncing off the roof and all around me but none conked me in the head.
My woods is full of them too and squirrels eat them on my shooting bench. Hard to walk.
I use a pooper scooper to pick them up and wish there was an easier way.

Check out the brass pick up tool from Unique Tech , I have one for center fire pistol brass and like it a lot . I have used it to pick up nuts from my 100' + oak tree! this tool was orginaly designed to pick up nuts ect and comes in several sizes for different nut sizes as well as 22lr and 12ga shells. though not available from Unique tech. you will have to contact the Mfg.

[KAF]

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=nut%20picker%20upper

[crowbuster]

We had late freezes this spring. Very few nuts, and fruit was sparse as well

[owejia]

My wife has a black walnut cake recipe that will make you want more. Sister-in-law sold one on a fund raiser last week that brought $80 dollars. Love black walnuts.

[375supermag]

Hi...

I have about 1/4 acre of woods on my property.
The vast majority of the trees are black walnut...several thousand on the ground every year. Used to pick them up and hull them...my mother would crack them and use them in walnut cake.
Since she got Alzheimer's and passed away, nobody wants them unless you crack them first. And they want them for free...

My daughter's are welcome to all they want...they haven't wanted any in at least 10 years.

Squirrels love them...I sit on the deck that goes right to the edge of the woods and watch them collect walnuts. Drives the Labs crazy watching the squirrels run up and down the trees. Be real entertaining here in a few weeks when all the leaves have fallen...I'll put the Labs out in the yard and watch them run from tree to tree trying to catch squirrels.

[44man]

Nothing better then black walnuts on pumpkin pie. I found a nut cracker at LEM cheap, breaks the buggers real good. Carol used to use my big vise and got shells all over the garage.
Now a question for you all. Why don't squirrels have brown faces?
To hull them make a hole in a board and pound the nut through.
Now if you want trees, pile the nuts off to the side and in the spring you can have a hundred trees growing but if you plant them squirrels will dig them up for the tasty nut left.

[s mac]

I've killed many a squirrel with brown stains on their face and front paws too when they are in the walnuts.

[Mk42gunner]

heck if you have to many trees sell one or two. Black walnut trees bring good money!
Only one is really big enough to sell, and the others aren't doing well enough to make it that big in my lifetime.

Robert

[runfiverun]

when we had walnut and pecan trees I just backed the airboat up to them and laid tarps out.
we got all the nuts off the tree at once, and most of the leaves.

[crowbuster]

My wife has a black walnut cake recipe that will make you want more. Sister-in-law sold one on a fund raiser last week that brought $80 dollars. Love black walnuts.

wow. Wife makes a mean black walnut pie, cookies to. Hickory nut pie, get the ---- out ! out of this world good !

[Plate plinker]

Wife makes the kids pumpkin cookies. Wife also makes a batch with black walnuts in them for me with chocolate chips. Those cookies do not last long.

[Plate plinker]

In my area there is a walnut buyer. The guy hulls them and cracks them for a price or you can trade raw nuts for some finished product.

[RP]

One of those pull or push yard sweepers works great for pecans never did walnuts. I had one I pulled around the old fellow down the road from me picked up leaves and nuts but the nuts all settle to the bottom of the sweeper. I helped him out one year after a visit and he was telling me he could no longer pick them up and they were part of his income. The next year he had his own sweeper he pulled with his golfcart got about 20 5 gal buckets in about two hours.

[44man]

Had a buyer here one time. Don't know where he went.
My woods is full of paw paw trees and they have spread all down the road. I only got a few this year. No apples or pears from frost.
My brother in law in Ohio planted 400 paw paw trees and is getting many to sell. An ice cream maker is paying $25 a pound.
Walnuts went nuts and I seen acorns down at a neighbors.

[hanleyfan]

I have 2 large pecan trees in my yard and I never get any nuts, before they fall the squirrels move in and in 3-4 days completely clean all the nut off of them, I seen as many as 10-12 squirrels at a time in those trees. My wife gets so mad at those squirrels and more than once told me to shoot them but I told her that if I kill them I have to clean them and I am too lazy.

[snowwolfe]

Had a buyer here one time. Don't know where he went.
My woods is full of paw paw trees and they have spread all down the road. I only got a few this year. No apples or pears from frost.
My brother in law in Ohio planted 400 paw paw trees and is getting many to sell. An ice cream maker is paying $25 a pound.
Walnuts went nuts and I seen acorns down at a neighbors.

Your brother is selling paw paw fruit for $25 a pound with the skin on?

[Iowa Fox]

Out of all the nut trees on the place which were loaded this year we might get 20 nuts if we're lucky. Just can't make a dent in the squirrels.

[toallmy]

A few years ago I had some buddy's come over with baseball bats to help me clean up the black walnuts , they spent the afternoon in the back yard knocking them out across the field behind the house . In 20 years that is the only time it wasn't a lot of work cleaning them up . Now we just pile them up , and after all the pecans are gone the squirrels will take them , but only as a last resort . My wife made me stop shooting them out of the tree years ago , she said it worried the new neighbors .

[Blackwater]

44man, do what a buddy of mine does - use them for targets. He tests his .22 pistols by how they'll hit a pecan at 50 yds. Tries his big bore handguns on them too, and if they won't hit them at 25 nearly every shot, with good loads, it doesn't stay around long, and gets traded off. Sure keeps him sharp, and though I know you don't have that problem, it's still ..... well, just plain fun to have a reactive target. Even with a .22, they jump and explode and all sorts of stuff. Keeps the fun in shooting.

[Scorpion8]

The farm I grew up on in PA had black walnut trees. Fun when you hit the droppings with the lawnmower. I recall they left nasty tannin stains on the lawn and tended to kill the grass where each walnut fell for about a 6 - 8" diameter. But we gathered them, dried 'em out and ate 'em.

[Thumbcocker]

Can't wait for my paw paw trees to start bearing.

[Sur-shot]

I have a pine tree farm about 1.5 miles south of the AL border. I can stand in one place on the farm and count 40 pecan trees. We have three groups of squirrels, grays, fox and the blacks. The blacks, locals call them pine squirrels as they live in the big tall yellow pine trees, are the largest squirrels in the Americas, got fur like a mink. Usually the squirrels put a real dent in the pecans before they get ripe, by eating through the husk when still green, but right now the pecans should be falling with split husks. The little valley near my bottom pond has big white oak acorns that the deer just love, they are bitter, nasty for peoples though.
Ed

[Plate plinker]

Had a buyer here one time. Don't know where he went.
My woods is full of paw paw trees and they have spread all down the road. I only got a few this year. No apples or pears from frost.
My brother in law in Ohio planted 400 paw paw trees and is getting many to sell. An ice cream maker is paying $25 a pound.
Walnuts went nuts and I seen acorns down at a neighbors.
????do tell????

[dave524]

No pecans up here, but as a kid there were several Butternut Trees out back, liked them as much as the Black Walnut, they are no more as a canker disease wiped them out years ago.

[swamp]

Any body make wood stain out of the husks? I have thought about giving it a try.

swamp

[jcwit]

Tried it but with no luck.

What did work well for me was a couple of spoonfulls of roof coating without fiber in a pint or a quart "depending how much you wanted' jar of mineral spirits. Worked super on Red or White Oak and Varnish or Lacquer finish on top with no problems.

Sold lots and lots of finished Oak Furniture at Home shows and flea markets years ago, before my retirement.

[crowbuster]

have stained traps with the husks. and they do a pretty good job staining my hands

[Blackwater]

Haven't tried it but have heard the hulls, boiled in water, make a good treatment for mange for dogs. Anyone got any info on this one?

[MaryB]

Memories of childhood... we had a black walnut trees on the farm and grandma made us husk them. Black stained hands for weeks! Lots of goodies with walnuts in them all winter though! We usually picked about 25 pounds of nut meat that grandma kept in the deep freeze.

[44man]

Yes, Gill sells whole paw paw fruit. I don't know how the place found he has trees unless from the state of Ohio. He got them free since they have been lost from many areas. The paw paw is an under story tree mostly and logging got rid of a lot of them. But he planted in the open. I love them but can only eat a few before they turn brown. Carol can't eat them since like a banana, they have latex in them.
Deer and animals really love them. The jerk that owned the property behind me cut his all down and he had cows. He also cut the persimmon trees. Glad he is gone now.
I never break mine and think they spread from my woods onto all the other properties. I knew what they were but neighbors had no idea until I showed them. Deer carry seeds all over. Now there are billions but they won't produce until a certain age.
My yard is again full of black walnuts and Carol wants to dry a bunch. Kim took many big bags home yesterday. Filled the back of her truck.

[44man]

I will not sell trees and will not cut or use wood unless they die or get broken. My white oak furniture was made from lightning struck wood that fell. My cherry gun stock is from a tree that died.
Walnut trees in the open spread too far with no straight logs so do not bring money.

[BAGTIC]

One of those 'roller cage' nut collectors works great for picking up our nuts without stooping or bending.

[44man]

I have dumped 100 6 gallon buckets in the woods, filled carts and the wagon many times and my 4'X4'X2' trailer to the top. At least 20 grain bags for Kim. Yard is still full. I never seen so many in 30 years.
Carol found the nut person and they have so many 55 gallon drums to process, they can't take more.
I am sick of this. Now leaves are falling and I can't get them up with the nuts in the yard.

[swamp]

44man,
PM inbound
swamp

[owejia]

Saw an ad in the local Peddler, guy paying $ .15/lb for black walnuts. Some trees loaded others hardly any at all on them.

[Oyeboten]

Crazy trees. Too many in my yard. I must have picked up 5000 of the things so far. My daughter takes bags for the squirrels at her place. Carol cracks them for us. The wind was blowing hard and they were bouncing off the roof and all around me but none conked me in the head.
My woods is full of them too and squirrels eat them on my shooting bench. Hard to walk.
I use a pooper scooper to pick them up and wish there was an easier way.

Offer them for sale here in the classifieds!

I'd buy some, and I am sure others who are out west, would also.

[MaryB]

Dried and husked I would buy some! I don't mind shelling but that nasty black husk stains...

[44man]

Now I would not sell them, let me see about getting rid of husks Mary, dry, maybe not you can dry them. Just postage.
Same for Swamp, he wants husks for stain. See what I can do, just need some time.