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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Walnuts/parsley

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  • From: "elderberryjam" <elderberryjam@zippytech.com>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Walnuts/parsley
  • Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:56:57 -0400

"It might also be that the wildlife (squirrels,etc) have been stocking up
for a cold winter???And maybe the tree that was still full of fruit was
closer or protected in some way?? Kinda reminds me of someone on another
list who was complaining how the "foreigners" in her mixed neighborhood had
stolen all her parsley. Upon closer inspection she found that it was really
caterpillars that had eaten them all.

Barb"

Nut and squirrel education time...

It is not the squirrels. The nuts haven't matured and fallen yet. I'm basing my count on what I see looking up into the trees. We have lots of red squirrel, and I can vouch for their laziness. I have never seen a squirrel collect a hard-hulled green nut off a tree, but I won't guarantee it has never happened. My bedroom window growing up (now my daughter's) overlooks the black walnut trees, and I've watched the squirrels for hours on end throughout my lifetime. I have collected fallen nuts in past years into a pile on the driveway to run over to get them cleaned off. Some people put them through a corn sheller. We pick them from between the stones and bring them in to crack. I have sat in my living room looking out the window, watching the squirrels come and take the nuts from my piles in the process of being cleaned in the driveway one at a time until the piles were nearly gone. They don't take the ones with hulls usually until they are fairly rotted off (after falling); and they much prefer my already cleaned ones. Hence their laziness.

That said, last year and this year are the first years I have "seriously" collected black walnuts. An Ohio nut association (yes, there are such entities), has had a booth at the Ohio State Fair for several years. This past August, I got to talking with one of the people there. He told me there is a much greater demand for black walnuts than there is a supply. There are several drop-off points where they will buy nuts-in-the-hull by the pick-up load. This year I wanted to try collecting to sell for the first time. Last year, I filled a feed sack with cleaned walnuts for my folks to crack. These people want them in the hull, so filling a pick-up is feasable. There were far more than I could collect while pregnant and working. It is a tradition in our family to use our black walnuts. My grandpa had a professional black walnut cracker, and he would give away bags of cracked nuts to his 4 children and 19 grandchildren for Christmas each year. My grandpa had a degree from OSU in agriculture. He once found a tree that made "5" meats instead of "4" and made all the women of the family jewelry from the walnuts shells.

Imagine my dismay when this year I went outside and stared up into the trees in anticipation of selling nuts, only to find most of the trees virtually empty! These trees aren't any more or less protected than they were the past 20 years. I'm new to the idea of selling. I feel like it is sort of a divine message that the walnuts are not for profit!

But, if it is just a matter of cycle, I can look forward to trying next year; or maybe I need to figure out which trees produce when. Some of the younger trees are off cycle with the older ones because they're loaded.

Gwen




  • Re: [Livingontheland] Walnuts/parsley, elderberryjam, 09/24/2006

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