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| Robbed Many Squirrels Here |
Quick Glossary
Husk - green/yellow software material on the outside
Shell - hard casing around the seed
Seed/Nut Meat - the delicious insides
When to Pick
- always had more success waiting for them to drop than to manually pick them, unless you have a very small tree there should be MORE than sufficient nuts dropping to compensate for animals eating them
- internet says skin needs to be pliable to the touch, it is true that typically the ones with harder shells are more unripe and will generally have smaller nut meat, but if you wait for them to fall, they will all be as ripe as they ever will be
Keep or Discard the Husk
- outer green husk is an excellent storage device (obviously), the nuts that stay inside the husk are nice and moist for months and months
- squirrels are smart, the ones they don't eat right away, they bury in the ground with the husk so they can dig up later, and nuts will be good to go (seeds don't seem to sprout readily with husk on) this method should work for humans too
- most internet sources will tell you to remove the husk first thing, this is due to the fact that if you have a hole in the nut's inner shell, the juglone in the husk will bleed into the nut
- why is this bad? I've found only one source about juglone negatively affecting humans, so not so sure about that. It also apparently causes a bitter taste, this is true but only slightly. It also turns the nut meat dark black which isn't nice
- the problem is that if your seed has a hole, you will probably have juglone in there before you remove the husk anyways
- approach that we've found that works is to just keep the husk on, and open the whole thing together, removing just the husk seems to be an extra laborious step
- one trade-off: if you are eating "fresh" nuts (ie < a few months old) by not removing the husk, the nut meat typically stays moist and so will be somewhat harder to remove because the nut will be larger and still be pressing against the shell. This is not a big issue though
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| Husk On |
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| Husk Off |
Harvest Procedure
- fixture the nut vertically with something like clamps or pliers (top of the nut is where the branch connection was)
- HULK SMASH with hammer or stone
- shell will shatter and nut meat can be extracted
- compost any nuts that look gnarly (ie totally black from juglone, infested with bugs, etc)
- to note: composting this juglone stuff seems to cause problems with other plants so isolate these and add them to walkways or where plants are not growing
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| Held Vertically |
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| Opened Shell Showing Nut Meat |
Enjoy
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| Much Stronger Flavour Than Normal Walnuts, Buttery Taste |
