Black Walnut Harvesting

We have lots of black walnut trees in our yard. This year, we decided to see how hard it is to get the nutmeat out. I now understand why black walnuts are so expensive, this is not like harvesting the pecans we have...much more work!

Frank raked up little mounds of walnuts all over the yard. To remove the husk we applied pressure with our foot to split it and then used our gloved hands to remove the shell. You have to wear gloves and shoes/clothes that you don't mind ruining because they stain something fierce!

Once the husk was removed we put them in a cart and hosed them down. This is to remove the husk residue before it contaminates the walnut meat.

See the stain that comes off. I have some of that on my fingers...yuck!

Now, we let them dry/cure. Once dry we will try shelling them. Black walnuts have very hard shells, so that won't be easy. We only did a few, to test this out before we do all of them.

Have you done this before? Do you have any tips for us? I'd love to hear them. I really want this to work...I love to use walnuts in my baking.