Now the walnuts are ready!

[packerbacker]

Recent rains have accelerated the opening of the hulls on the walnuts causing a lot to hit the ground before harvest. Now, unless you want to run over a bunch of walnuts, you have to sweep the ones on the ground up and then use the shaker on the ones still in the tree.

[RGINN]

Are these those English walnuts? I'm more familiar with black walnuts. One of my grandpas told me they would pick a bunch of those, while they were still in the hull and a little green, put em in a gunny sack, and drag that sack behind the horse while they headed down to the creek. This bruised the hulls up. They would find a pool in the creek, toss in the sack, and the fish would be stunned from the juice of the bruised hulls and float up to the top. Sorry, we were a little lazy, easily amused, and hard put for a good time in the Indian Nations, but highly creative. Those hulls look the same and the same chemical might be present, just in case you have a use for it. You can also get a real good permanent dye from the hulls.

[packerbacker]

I've never tried it but I have heard you can stun fish with the walnut oil from still-green walnut hulls. I heard it had to be in a small pond or very slow running creeks to work.
These trees are English Walnuts grafted to Black Walnut root systems. You can't tell much from the tree on the left but, if you look at the bottom of the trunk of the tree in the top-center, you can see the very dark bark of the Black Walnut and, above that, the grafted trunk of the English. The tree on the left is the same. You can kinda make out the graft line on it but the water deposits have turned the bark to almost white. The Black has a much stronger root system and the English a more desireable meat so they marry the two.
Don't get me wrong, the blacks have a good flavor but is much "stronger" flavored than the English and you need a sledge hammer to open the blacks.

[Tuberale]

Walnut hulls, both English and Black, have high concentrations of tannic acid. At one time they were collected specifically for the tannic acid used to tan skins.

[ohioaxeman]

Sign in storefront yesterday said "paying $11.00 per one hundred lbs of black walnuts" ... are they worth that much?

[packerbacker]

That was probably for still-in-the-shell walnuts. Not sure about blacks but for English last year the average grower got about $1 per pound or a tad higher. If you look on the net now you can order them, still in the shell, for about $3.50-$4 lb. They are very pricey when bought in small quantities. If you can buy 100 lbs for $11 and then sell them locally for even $2 lb, I'd say you did pretty good. Lots of folks start buying them now because it's not just the season but they know they will need them for holiday baking. They start costing more around December and they will keep for a very long time just setting in the shell.

[packerbacker]

For anyone interested, here is a better pic of the graft between a Black Walnut and an English Walnut tree. Also a pic of some washed walnuts, a nut cracker and a bucket of cracked nuts. Only takes a few minutes to crack a bucket full.

[ronwoodcraft]

My 2 cents worth,

I drive pass those trees all the time, and have wondered about getting some of those stumps when they take out the trees. Years ago I heard that the graft section has some beautiful wood grain where the light and dark woods have grown together. Heard it was sought after for making pistol grips. I imagine alot of wood turning enthusiasts wood be interested in it also.