primitives discuss black walnuts

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x89495

Oh my.

Denninmi  (1000+ posts)      Tue Oct-04-11 10:30 PM
Original message
 
So, it's black walnut harvest season.

Taking the hulls off and picking up about a bushel of nuts each evening after work, which takes me roughly an hour. I rake them into a concentrated area, drive over them with the mower to break open the hulls, and then pick out the nuts.

After they dry for about 2-3 weeks in the greenhouse (which has no plants this time of year), I'll move them into the basement.

Winter will be a festival of shelling. I have an electric walnut cracker, but its still a slow process since it does one at a time.

A couple of years back, my mother cracked out 69 lbs of nutmeats. I'd like to beat that record this year.

Better get crackin'!

Love black walnuts. All kinds of great things in the future -- walnut brittle, date nut bread, candied walnuts on top of the Thanksgiving day Brussels Sprouts, black walnut brownies.

You know, there's black walnut trees all over this place, but they don't seem too happy out here on the eastern slope of the Sandhills.  I guess they were planted during the 1880s, and they're always pretty brittle and sickly-looking.

Probably they were intended by God and nature to grow in Florida, not Nebraska.

But they do put out heaps, piles, of peach-sized green balls (the walnut's inside) smothering the ground.

grasswire  (1000+ posts)      Wed Oct-05-11 01:22 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. I can't even buy them here.

I've been meaning to mail-order some for several years now.

Well, the grasswire primitive's welcome to bring her little red wagon out here, and load up on them.

For free, even.

Callalily  (1000+ posts)      Wed Oct-05-11 08:40 PM
Response to Original message
 
4. Awwwww . . . black walnuts.

My friends' mom used to harvest them and give the walnuts away as gifts. Needless to say I "stood right in line."

You are blessed to be able to have such an abundance. That said, if you need to distribute, well I'm standing in line for that too.

franksolich is neutral about walnuts; they're okay, but I wouldn't go six feet out of my way for one.

And now, the obligatory racist primitive witticism, something which we're going to see more and more, even in the cooking and baking forum:

tigereye  (1000+ posts)        Thu Oct-20-11 02:15 PM
Response to Original message
 
6. we used to get those from a tree on a nearby farm when 

I was a kid. Very tasty but a bit of work.

I thought at first there was a Herman Cain comment imbedded here...

[Celtic Rose]

My friend has some black walnut trees, and the tips of her fingers are dyed brown during harvesting season. 

I can go either way with walnuts. If they are there I might eat one or two, but I generally won't buy them. 

[franksolich]

My friend has some black walnut trees, and the tips of her fingers are dyed brown during harvesting season. 

I can go either way with walnuts. If they are there I might eat one or two, but I generally won't buy them. 

My mother used to use walnuts a lot, when cooking, but memory fails me on what she used them for.

It wasn't until I moved out here that I knew that walnuts actually grow inside some peach-sized ball, and that it's a lot of work to extricate the shell and the walnut inside.

Driving over them with a lawn-mower to crush those peach-sized balls so one can get the inside seems like a good idea, if walnuts are one's thing.

[JohnnyReb]

My mother used to use walnuts a lot, when cooking, but memory fails me on what she used them for.

It wasn't until I moved out here that I knew that walnuts actually grow inside some peach-sized ball, and that it's a lot of work to extricate the shell and the walnut inside.

Driving over them with a lawn-mower to crush those peach-sized balls so one can get the inside seems like a good idea, if walnuts are one's thing.

If you have a gravel driveway, here's what you do. Wait until the hulls turn black then pick them up and pour them in the gravel driveway. Drive over them for a couple of weeks until there's nothing but the nut left. Don't worry, you won't hardly crack the nut.

 Every old southern home used to have at least one walnut tree in the backyard. They were there for a reason. Way back women had to do the laundry outside in a washpot and on an old scrubboard. When they finished with the wash they would pour the water out on the ground. Water and heat spontaneously generates gnats. Gnats will not hang around a walnut tree. Therefore the old woman of the house did the laundry under the walnut tree and didn't have to fight the gnats while doing it.

Never get a large walnut tree from the backyard of an old home place thinking you'll have it sawed into lumber. The walnut trees had large nails, horse shoes or railroad spikes drove in the old women to hang her buckets, tubs, washboard and sometimes castiron washpot.

[BattleHymn]

Black walnut trees are around here in the tens of thousands.  We always used to collect black walnuts by the truckload when I was little, and sell them by the ton.  Just think, some of you primitives probably handled a walnut that I touched. 

[GOBUCKS]

grasswire  (1000+ posts)      Wed Oct-05-11 01:22 AM
Response to Original message
 
2. I can't even buy them here.

I've been meaning to mail-order some for several years now

Well, I have never shopped on the left coast, but from Seattle to San Diego it's the land of fruits and nuts.

I'm certain that the baking section of every supermarket in that blue cesspool has bags and bags of whole walnuts, chopped walnuts, minced walnuts, walnuts of every description.

They are expensive, though, which is probably why the addled semi-baglady grasswire can't buy them.

[franksolich]

Well, I have never shopped on the left coast, but from Seattle to San Diego it's the land of fruits and nuts.

I'm certain that the baking section of every supermarket in that blue cesspool has bags and bags of whole walnuts, chopped walnuts, minced walnuts, walnuts of every description.

They are expensive, though, which is probably why the addled semi-baglady grasswire can't buy them.

Well, that's what got me.

I see walnuts of all kinds and packaged all ways, in the grocery store all year round.

Perhaps the grasswire primitive wants a special sort of walnut, like that apple she was commenting about some weeks ago.  I forget what it was called.

[Skul]

I demand every three of four be white walnuts. 

[Tucker]

Walnut trees suck.

I have several. They're like bombs being dropped in the Fall. They hurt when you get bopped with one. I have to replace my mower blade every other year.  I have more squirrels that all of Rocky's stunt doubles.

Only good thing about them is I get practice with my pitching wedge on the green ones.

[GOBUCKS]

Walnut trees suck.

I have several. They're like bombs being dropped in the Fall. They hurt when you get bopped with one. I have to replace my mower blade every other year.  I have more squirrels that all of Rocky's stunt doubles.

Only good thing about them is I get practice with my pitching wedge on the green ones.

Big walnut trees are very valuable for veneer (and gunstocks), you can eat walnuts, and you can boil new steeltraps in walnut husks to darken them and eliminate scent.

The worst trees are Osage orange. Useless fruit that can dent your car.

[BattleHymn]

Big walnut trees are very valuable for veneer (and gunstocks), you can eat walnuts, and you can boil new steeltraps in walnut husks to darken them and eliminate scent.

The worst trees are Osage orange. Useless fruit that can dent your car.

I'm not aware of much of a use for the fruit, although I'm sure there is some use for it, but the wood has all sorts of uses.  I personally have a bow made of the wood, and use it for fuel wood whenever I can get it.  My father uses it for fence posts, and is saving some large pieces for furniture.  It's a beautiful wood.