Black walnut storage fail

[ButterflyLady29]

I am so mad at myself for not getting those nuts shelled and frozen last winter. They sat in the shell in the basement. I've done that before and the nuts were still fresh and tasty even a year later. I don't know what happened this time but I cracked a couple dozen nuts and all were bad. Stale, fuzzy, dried out, just plain YUCK.

So what do you do with 20 gallons of not fit to eat black walnuts? They burn pretty well and I have a wood burning stove. Or I could use them as squirrel bait. Too bad I don't know anyone who uses the nut shells in jewelry.

[Susan W]

Whoa! Did you collect a mess of walnuts off the ground with the husk on? Is that's what's in your buckets? Eewe.....!!!
Or have husk free walnuts in shells? If so, how did you do that?!

I try to gather some walnuts (whole, greenish) in fall for the dye pots. As I'm moving slightly away from the historical fibers and dye pots, not so much now. I use them whole for the dye pot. When in open buckets, out of rain, both the squirrels and worm things have all-you-can-eat field days.

When beyond redemption, I try to scatter back in the hedge, not in compost. If the tannins hurt the privet or wisteria, not a problem. The squirrels will get belly aches on old walnuts, or try to plant in my containers.

[!potatoes!]

sounds like it's either very damp down there or the nuts weren't completely dry/cured before they got stored. not much useful you can do with them at this point. burning them isn't a bad idea.

[ButterflyLady29]

I cleaned the husk off. When we were gathering them we stepped on them and squished the husks then peeled them off and let them lay under the tree.

!potatoes! Probably a bit of both. Hubby never spread them out and the basement has been pretty damp this year. Thanks, you solved my problem. I spread this years batch out to dry better.

I won't have many this winter. My trees produced absolutely nothing. I don't know if it was the late freeze or our hot, dry summer. The ones drying in the basement now are from a friend who lives about 20 miles north of me.

[!potatoes!]

I tend to wash them asap when I get the husks off - 5 gallon bucket with a few inches of gravel and 4 or 5 changes of water, stirred vigorously with a walking stick. this helps them dry faster, as it gets a lot of the remaining shreds of husk off (which can rot or hold water). (it also lets you do a float test - any nuts that float after being husked will be empty) not sure if this would help you or not. conventional wisdom is that they need 4-6 weeks of drying in a breezy place in a single layer before piling them up together. in a basement, a fan and/or space heater and/or dehumidifier may speed the process.

I'm pretty sure a late frost got our nuts in our little valley this year, but there are enough around that I've got a decent stockpile building up.

[Gary350]

I have a black walnut tree in the yard, I can not eat those things they make me sick. I cut a 1/4" wide slice right out of the center of a walnut, sanded both sides the varnished it, it was beautiful. My cousin saw the walnut slice that I varnished and said, that gives me an idea. He raked up all my walnuts and took them home. He dumped 600 walnut in his gravel driveway drove on them for a month to remove the outside covering. Then he cut a 1/4" slice out of all the walnuts, sanded both side, then covered the top of an old oak kitchen table with all those walnut slices then poured about 2 quarts of polyester resin over the walnuts and let it get hard. Wow it was beautiful. He sold that table for $2000. He is a hobby furniture maker and I am not, I would have never thought of doing that.