Walnuts - questions about trees, collecting, drying, weights, etc

[DianeS]

I know there is likely to be a wide range of answers, because everyone's climate and tree size will be different, but that's OK.

With the stores here selling shelled walnut meats at almost $10 per pound, it is becoming more tempting to buy the unprocessed ones fresh from the trees that people around here sell on Craigslist. But I need to have an idea if it will really be cheaper. Would paying $10 for a tree's worth of freshly fallen walnuts be a deal or not?

In case that's too broad of a question, I've broken in down in hopes of getting some specific information

I am wondering how many walnuts a single tree will produce in a year. I don't have the foggiest idea - it could be anywhere from 10 walnuts to 100 lbs of walnuts for all I know.

And if one collects fresh walnuts from the trees/ground, and properly prepares them, how much weight is left by the time they're shelled? (In other words, if you gather 10 lbs of fresh walnuts, dry them, get the outside off, get the shell off, etc - how many pounds are left of the actual nut meats?)

Also, how much WORK is involved in processing walnuts? I have looked up the actual steps, but I'm wondering if it's easy, or difficult, or time-consuming, etc.

Thanks!

 

[Dawn419]

DianeS,

I'm not sure just how to answer your questions but have been Googling them off and all and still not finding the answers that you are looking for!

Years ago, I had access on me and the ex-hubby's land, to unlimited access of black walnuts...as long as it was a good year for them. Nut trees are a lot like fruit trees in that you will have "off" years where they just don't seem to produce as well.

Back at that time, I decided to use only homegrown harvested nuts and it was a pain in the a$$! I collected bucket, after bucket of walnuts, poured the nuts into the driveway so that our car/truck would break up the hulls only to get into the shells and find about half of the nut meat (for everything I'd collected) usable.

If our walnut trees had been worked with (treated as if they were orchard trees), I think it may have had a positive effect on them. As it was, they were just trees and most of the nut meat that I collected had been infested by the local bug population and then there was the squirrels that you had to beat getting to the nuts when they were ripe.

All in all, from that one experience, I'd rather pay for the cleaned nut meat from the store if I need it but at the same time, I wish we had mature walnut trees on our land so that I could make a natural stain.

I look forward to reading other members' replies on this one!

 

[dacjohns]

It depends. Don't you just love that answer.

Are you asking about black walnuts or English walnuts? There is a very big difference.

Black walnuts are a lot of work. The husk is thick and full of water. The husk will stain just about anything. The shells are thick and almost indestructible. I use a five pound hammer for breaking the shells. I also pulverize a lot of the nutmeat. It takes a lot of finesse.

 

[DianeS]

I posted this question forever ago, but thought others might like an answer to it.

I answered an ad on Craigslist from a woman whose English Walnut tree had dropped all its walnuts, and she wanted them removed from her yard. So -

From one large walnut tree, I collected a bit over 60 lbs of walnuts in the hulls. (I probably missed a few pounds on the ground, but so will most people.)
After removing the hulls, I was left with aproximately 30 lbs of walnuts in the shell.
After drying and shelling them, I was left with approximately 10-12 lbs of walnut meats.

A significant amount of my walnuts were moldy, though. I ended up with only about 4 lbs of edible walnut meats. I think it's because the walnuts were soaking wet on the ground when I collected them, and I simply didn't have enough room to dry them all as quickly as I wanted. My first batch of dried ones were good, with almost all the meats edible. It was successive batches that had more and more mold, so I don't think that much mold will be typical for others if they get them dried faster than I did.

The work was hard, but not impossibly so. Collecting the walnuts was fine, the most difficult part was knowing if I'd gotten them all since the grass was high. Hard hauling them to the car, since the tree was so far away from where I could park. Hulling was OK because they were wet, but it was very very messy because they were wet. (Not black walnuts, so no staining.) My hands were cold and aching because I had to do that mess outside, and it did take several hours. Drying was OK, but like I said I needed way more space than I had to do it properly. Shelling was hard, anyone can shell a few handfuls of walnuts, but shelling dozens of pounds makes your fingers hurt. Shelling is time consuming as well.

In the future I intend to get to walnut trees before all the walnuts have sat on the ground and collected water for weeks - I may limit myself to collecting during the first part of the season only.
I will also gate off a whole room and get those walnuts dried QUICKLY instead of in batches. That seemed to make the difference between edible and moldy.
Assuming the test-shelled ones are all good, I will store most of the walnuts in the shell next time, and only shell as I need them instead of all at once. That will save my fingers.

Hope someone else can learn from this!

 

[Rebbetzin]

Speaking of walnuts...Did you see this?

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/8294-walnuts-are-drugs-says-fda