Anybody got their walnuts in yet?

[jltrent]

I picked up and hulled out 30 gallons yesterday. A lot of these came off three big trees that the inside of the walnuts has white nuts in them. Some people like the brown nuts better. If the weather next week is good may try to get about 30 more gallon as they are good this year and the trees are loaded. Before being hulled out I had two 7' loader buckets way on full.

 

[Bright Raven]

I don't gather walnuts. This was a good fall. I have lots of wulnut trees and they were loaded.

 

[M.Magis]

This may be the best year I've seen. We haven't gathered any in years, but thought maybe I'd get some this year. I don't miss cracking them.

 

[1982vett]

Don't have walnut around here, but I'm getting some pecans.

 

[Turkeybird]

Anyone gather hickory nuts( ole timers talk about em)

 

[M.Magis]

I've gathered hickory nuts before, but they're a bigger PITA to get the meat out than walnuts. I let the squirrels have them now.

 

[kenny thomas]

Anyone gather hickory nuts( ole timers talk about em)

Lots of,Hickory nuts here this year. My grandmother would sit for hours cracking them just to get enough to add to the Christmas candy. They really taste good but sure are hard to get the meat out of.

 

[callmefence]

Don't have walnut around here, but I'm getting some pecans.

You gotta shake limbs here to beat the hogs to them.

 

[1982vett]

Don't have walnut around here, but I'm getting some pecans.

You gotta shake limbs here to beat the hogs to them.

Probably so in the creek bottoms. Luckily my trees are not in their paths so far.

 

[Lucky_P]

Y'all just need to find a good hickory. And a good nutcracker, like the Mr. Hickory, Kenkel, or Master Cracker.
I've got one shagbark here that cracks out 75% intact halves. Yeah, it's more work than most pecans, but I can crack a 1 gallon ice cream bucket full of nuts in 15-20 minutes then sit down and pick out a quart or more of nutmeats in a couple of hours while watching TV.
I'm grafting more copies of that one.

 

[dun]

Y'all just need to find a good hickory. And a good nutcracker, like the Mr. Hickory, Kenkel, or Master Cracker.
I've got one shagbark here that cracks out 75% intact halves. Yeah, it's more work than most pecans, but I can crack a 1 gallon ice cream bucket full of nuts in 15-20 minutes then sit down and pick out a quart or more of nutmeats in a couple of hours while watching TV.
I'm grafting more copies of that one.

I far prefer hickory nuts to pecans. We have a forest of wild hazel nuts. Most years I don;t get any. I'll check and figure about 2 more days and they'll be ready. In those 2 days the dam squirrels strip them all. For a joke I sent my brother a big sack of black walnuts, hulled but needed cracking. Told him the easiest way was to set them on the vice and hit them with a hammer. I really pizzed when the first one he did flew off and broke his basement window. That's was 18 years ago and he still has almost all of the them in the sack I sent him.

 

[ga.prime]

The kind of hickory nuts we have around are really hard to get out of the shell and have a kind of a bitter taste. Pignut hickories. Squirrels won't eat them until it's their last option.

 

[jltrent]

I added three more buckets to those walnuts in the picture. I have cracked two buckets so far ,except for a few duds they are good. Matter of fact just got done cracking a pile. Haven't tried hickey nuts, but there are plenty of hickey trees around here, so next year will give them a try.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Wish I could find a nice grove of large mature walnuts...so I could lay waste them, and haul off their remains.

 

[greybeard]

The kind of hickory nuts we have around are really hard to get out of the shell and have a kind of a bitter taste. Pignut hickories. Squirrels won't eat them until it's their last option.

Same here. Always bitter and smaller than a common hickory nut

 

[talltimber]

My grandma had four or five hickories in her yard, years ago, that produced the large nuts. I've not found but one tree since that puts that big of a nut on. They were really worth the effort, but was not what I would call easy to get out. Easier than these small ones I can pick up out in the woods. She made pies with them. Way better than pecans, and I really like pecans. Walnuts, not so much, but we have a big crop of them this year.

 

[Lucky_P]

For cooking, I prefer hickories; if I'm just gonna be eating a handful of nuts, I prefer pecans.
Shagbarks are the easiest cracking, but most are fairly small. Shellbarks much larger, but shell is thicker.
Other hickory species, like pignut, mockernut, etc., usually not worth bothering with. Bitternut hickory and some individual pignuts have a bitter/astringent taste... not unlike an unripe persimmon.

There are superior selections - just as is the case for pecan and other fruit/nut species - that have better-than-average cracking characteristics, like thinner shell, open central cavity, etc., that result in ability to get intact halves/quarters out instead of just tiny little fragments of nutmeat.
Same for black walnuts... there are improved varieties with much thinner shells and higher kernel percentage (35-55% vs 12-15% kernel for most typical 'wild' BWs).

 

[KMURBAN]

Don't really bother with the nuts, but I do tap them like maple trees, excellent syrup...