Today I picked up some walnuts at the orchard. The time of year for walnut harvest has come, but my friend’s orchard is still young enough that it is not in full production. That means that we get to pick up the nuts by hand.
The walnut grows inside of a husk which dries up when it is ready to harvest and the nut will fall to the ground or can be picked from the tree.
Walnut orchards are usually harvested by shaking the trees and then picking the shells up off the ground. I have watched videos of tree shaking machines and they are pretty cool. The nuts are then swept into a row with a raking machine and picked up with yet another piece of equipment.
If you are harvesting manually you can get a nut picker upper tool so you don’t have to bend over as much. These type of tools typically have some type of wire arrangement that you bring down over the nuts to capture them. Then you can dump them into a bucket or bag.
Here I am using the tool to pick up some of the nuts that have fallen to the ground.
Look at all the walnuts. We cracked open a few shells and the nutmeat was really good. I brought home a big bag of walnuts, and will take my time cracking them open.
Now to think of some ways to use walnuts. I think mostly I will just eat them straight up 🙂
Steven
Braman's Wanderings 