Nuts!

[Gatorboy]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Stick em in your "beaney crutch"...

[/ QUOTE ]

What is a beaney crutch? [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[egon]

Is that the item we used as kids to propell small objects such as round pebbles into windows
Egon

[Hayseed]

A slingshot perhaps...

[Chuck52]

Bill,

Seems most everyone believes you have black walnuts. The only problem I have is the "golf ball size" thing. I just picked up some walnuts still in the green husk, and they're more like tennis ball size. You sure you don't have hickory nuts? If that's what they are, the green husk is divided into 3 or 4 pieces with seams. The nut inside is fairly smooth, more like an English walnut than a black walnut. Some hickory nuts have kernels of decent size, and they taste great, but they're usually even more work than black walnuts to get to, unless they're one of the thin shelled kind. Of course, after all that talk, you maybe meant a darn big golf ball.

Chuck

[dhvd79a]

They black walnut trees we have produce a nut w/husk that is somewhere between a golf ball and tennis ball. I'd describe them as tennis ball size.

The only way I know how to "prepare them is to gather 'em up and lay 'em in the sun someplace dry until the husks come off easily(a relative term).

Depending on how many trees you have if you ever decide to clear them out you may have a small fortune in logs. A group of hardwood trees all about the same age planted in the same soil can bring big $$$$.

Dave

[DocHeb]

Other folks have suggested Black Walnuts, but the fruit from the Butternut tree is similiar in color, although a bit smaller and more elongated than the Walnut husk.

[ChuckinVA]

WVBILL

Are you in the Ranson/Charlestown area ?

I have family there who have had Walnut trees in their yard for years but the fruit on them was never any good. They tried raking up the hulls and putting down hulls and all kinds of fertilizing etc. My grandmother used to say that some nuts never were any good. I heard that you can tell if the nuts are any good after they have been hulled by placing them in water. If they float that are bad. If the sink they are good. I hope they are good. I usually get about a pound from my grandmother around Christmas. She has a nut cracker with a long handle for leverage and she picks all the nut meat out of the shell and bags it for baking. I like to put them in cookies and fruit cakes. And it gives her something to do in the winter.
CHUCK

[fenneran]

We have 5 black walnut trees (in the central Shenandoah Valley). A neighbor comes by each year and gather them up. He puts them on his driveway and runs them over with a pickup. Hulled, he now dries them out and shells them later. We get a ziploc bag of them back next year all shelled and ready to eat.

They are a bit different in taste from the "blue Diamond" variety. From what I understand, they are another breed of walnut.

If you have the gumption, there is a farmer here in Swoope (south-west of Staunton) that pays $.09 per pound of hulled nuts. You bring them by the truckload in the hull and he runs them through a machine that strips the hulls off and bags them. He pays you for the weight of the end product. If you are interested, I can send you an email with his contact information.

-Frank

[WVBill]

Chuck:
Yes. I'm just outside Summit Point - right on the WV-VA border about 7 miles south of Charles Town.

I haven't really tried all these suggestions on how to get to the nuts yet. The few of these nuts that I've been able to pry open
have not looked all that good so the incentive to put in the effort hasn't been there. Maybe my trees are
like your Grandmother's