If you have a walnut tree in your yard or near where you live you are one lucky person. Not all trees deliver great crops without a little bit of care, but many do. I harvested a giant crop of nuts from the tree in my backyard for years — until I moved. I don’t think it was ever sprayed, which means the 50 pounds-plus of nuts that I gathered were organic!

Watch as your walnuts grow green globes throughout the summer and into fall. Sometime in October — before Halloween — you will notice a few dropping. Also look to see if some of the green hulls are partly open. If so, it’s time to harvest. You will need a long stick of some sort so that you can literally knock the (mostly still green) nuts out of the tree. A tarp under the tree is a great idea to help with gathering. Don’t worry if you break some branches and knock out some leaves. No problem.

Now, before you gather up those nuts, get yourself a pair of thick gloves. The green hulls on the nuts will stain your hands black for days. Once you’ve gathered the nuts, you need to crack all of them out of those green hulls and put them in a single layer in the sun (cover when it’s raining) so that they can dry out. Try a nut from time to time to test for dryness. At first, they’re rubbery and bitter. They turn toasty and sweet through drying.

Note that if your tree drops nuts that are wrapped in black, people will tell you that the nuts inside are bad. Not necessarily so. Open them and see. You might be surprised.

Once your nuts are dry, you’ll want to crack and store them in the freezer asap. The best way to crack them is to use a hammer (with a block of wood under) and hit them on the top. If you hit just right, you’ll get perfect walnut halves. Crack through 10 or 20, pick through them and move on. This is an excellent thing to do while watching TV. Note that the shells will fly around the room a bit so there is some cleanup.

Hope this helps. More questions? Fire away.