Walnuts

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xylaria

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Hands up who being collecting walnuts, ahh yes, are they going to still be black by Christmas, because mine are.

We found four trees of walnuts that had dropped their fruit after the hurricane, so will filled two rucksacks and the bike paniers up. The outer shells contain phenols and smell lovely, they also if you have never come across them stain everything. I am not talking something that is difficult to wash off or out, it dyes stuff permanently. My hands started off a delicate shade of trump have now turned coal miner black, they stay this colour for serveral weeks. I also found out the dye comes through marigolds, the slurry hurts when it gets in your eyes and don't pour it on the lawn. I say this as someone that doesn't wear PPE for making soap or sanding, you need eye googles and thick black cow gloves, you also need to wear old clothes or black. There are several youtube videos of americans shelling black walnuts, none of them do it indoors. Black walnuts appear to shell easier than English, but other wise they are pretty much the same.

https://flic.kr/p/Zymts3
Zymts3
Zymts3


The fruit are round smooth green tennis ball size, I would put a picture up, but I haven't set up hosting account to replace photobucket yet. The husks can be removed by several methods. They can be run over with a car, or stepped on. They be put in cement mixer with gravel and some water. We just cut the husks off, with a knife and then removed what was left on the nut by agitating first in a wheelbarrow with gravel (like you would mix cement) and then in a bucket with a stick with lump on the end. The nuts are clean when they are yellow.

The slurry in the wheelbarrow I used to dye a towel dull brown. I didn't use a mordent, just left the towel in there to see what colour it turned and fast it was. I made the mistake of pouring the slurry on to grass, it has chemical that suppresses growth and germination in other plants. My lawn isn't bowling green, it is work space for putting up tents and painting bit items, but the area I poured it doesn't look happy. The rest of slurry I poured on the path to keep the weeds down in the gaps between slabs. It doesn't appear to dye concrete, but that isn't a guarantee.

Once the shells are pretty much clean they need drying below 40c, and keeping dry for at least six weeks. This enables the nut meat to come away from the shell. They store for up a year in the shell.

I was going to write a tutorial, but I cant post a pictures, here is a blog post I wrote in the mean time. https://stupidlysimplelife.blogspot.co.uk/https://stupidlysimplelife.blogspot.co.uk/
 
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Paulm

Full Member
May 27, 2008
1,089
183
Hants
We have a couple of productive trees locally and last year was an amazing crop, but this year nothing at all.

I'm disappointed not to have a couple of bucketfuls this year but at the same time I'm not missing the cleaning, staining and general mess ! :)
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
You know how chlorine bleach removes the almost impossible to remove stains from turmeric ? I wonder if it'd work on walnut stain too ?

M
 

dasy2k1

Nomad
May 26, 2009
299
0
Manchester
You know how chlorine bleach removes the almost impossible to remove stains from turmeric ? I wonder if it'd work on walnut stain too ?

M
Turmeric can be removed much easier in alkali conditions when it turns red

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk
 

Nice65

Brilliant!
Apr 16, 2009
6,438
2,859
W.Sussex
We have a couple of productive trees locally and last year was an amazing crop, but this year nothing at all.

I'm disappointed not to have a couple of bucketfuls this year but at the same time I'm not missing the cleaning, staining and general mess ! :)

Same here Paul, hardly a single one. Last year was bumper, but having a rookery just over the road means we never get any. They have a fair old party in that tree when it's loaded with nuts.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,293
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Walnut husk makes a wondeful leather dye. I need some.
Crushed shells make a great polishing medium for metals. Removes the tarnish/oxide. Fantastic to polish brass fasings before reloading
Great to burn too. Nice & hot.

Fresh walnut kernels = manna. Sweet, nutritious.

You guys are lucky.

Rooks? Good eating.
 

xylaria

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I have never come across that amount of walnuts outside of London. Reading around like plums they need a mild March to set fruit. I am in Llanelli we don't get much in the way of frost. There is even a fig in farmfoods carpark that fruits reliably.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
I'd like to experiment with walnut husk-based ink.
Curried, salted and roasted walnut pieces are heaven.
Are pickled walnuts good?

Crushed walnut shell is a common replacement abrasive for sand in paint scouring. No silicosis risk and no iron silicate brittleness in metal surfaces.
Due to abrasive road damage, some jurisdictions have banned the use of carbide studs in winter tires.
The alternative? Crushed walnut shell in the rubber. Don't skate as badly on black ice.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,293
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Pickled Walnuts?
The British eqvivalent of swedish Fermented Herring, but not as tasty........

Yeah, we were surprised studded tyres were not legal in Ontario. We got our son a vehicle recently, and I wanted to get him proper studded tyres, but was told only unstudded Winter tyres were allowed.

Yes, they do damage the roads, but I rather do that and live. I used to get full studded tyres in Sweden. Was it about 150 studs per tyre or so? Had to pay extra for that. Life saver, did not mind.

The studs did save my backside a few times.
 

Nice65

Brilliant!
Apr 16, 2009
6,438
2,859
W.Sussex
Walnut husk makes a wondeful leather dye. I need some.
Crushed shells make a great polishing medium for metals. Removes the tarnish/oxide. Fantastic to polish brass fasings before reloading
Great to burn too. Nice & hot.

Fresh walnut kernels = manna. Sweet, nutritious.

You guys are lucky.

Rooks? Good eating.

Rooks can be eaten, but I rather like the mischievous buggers.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
Absolute minimum winter tires here are marked M+S (mud & snow).
The 3-peak mountain logo with the snowflake marks a tire engineered for winter driving.

Which species of walnut is most common in England these days?

Black walnut = Juglans nigra
English walnut = Juglans regia (the typically edible one of choice.)
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,664
McBride, BC
South of my place, the Gelatley family spent many years selecting, pollination and planting walnut groves in the Okanaga valley. Hazel nuts, too.
Far as I know, they are all J. regia. Taste OK, no heavy tannin load.

The orchard vacuums for walnuts run on snow tires for better traction with less damage.
I'm still waiting to learn how they separate the mice from the walnuts.
 

woodstock

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 7, 2007
3,568
68
67
off grid somewhere else
You know how chlorine bleach removes the almost impossible to remove stains from turmeric ? I wonder if it'd work on walnut stain too ?

M

Nope I tried wd40 which has worked on most stains but had limited results on the walnut stain, my hands are black but Fi looks like a black and white minstrel she has it on her hands face and arms don't ask its Fi.
 

Nice65

Brilliant!
Apr 16, 2009
6,438
2,859
W.Sussex
Juglans regia is our native nut producer.

I'm wondering about the ones Xylaria describes as being tennis ball size, that seems quite large, bigger than I've found.
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
:lmao: :D

I once made ink with the hulls ; I have never been in such a mess in my life, not even with woad. I looked like the opposite of vitiligo for about a fortnight. The only thing that came close to that kind of staining was Gypsywort. Fi's skin tone and mine are pretty similar really, tell her that I found Ajax or Vim actually helped....though it didn't take it out from around my nails, which looked like a bad henna job !
It's no wonder it's a good wood and leather dye.

M
 

Herbalist1

Settler
Jun 24, 2011
585
1
North Yorks
Once lived in a house with a walnut tree - most years there weren't that many and the squirrels usually beat me to them.
But one year I had a bumper crop and I got loads. They were really delicious but my hands were so badly stained from picking them - even scouring pads wouldn't shift it (not if you wanted to retain some skin) - but it was still worth it 😜
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
I was complaining about the stains one day when I was demonstrating natural dyes. An older lady came up to me and she said that the secret was to soak them, and then put them into a bucket and use a pressure washer on them.

She was absolutely emphatic that it worked, and she just used the nozzle for cleaning out the rones, but all I could think of was, "Oh God, the mess, the mess !"

M
 

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