I wish I had known that trick when I was a kid. It was the kids job to sit in the basement with a hammer and a brick, and a gunnysack full of black walnuts to get enough for divinity for Christmas. I'm willing, in my old age, to pay dearly for them in the stores now.

Okay, who besides me wants walnut brownies now? We need an emoticon for stuffing your face!

Thanks for the tip
Black walnuts have so much more flavor than most nuts, well worth the effort

Oh, wow, and I gave up after the first try, decades ago! The squirrels get all ours. I may have to steal a few to try this!

THANK YOU!
My grandmother's Christmas cookie recipe (dates back at least to 1920) has black walnuts in it.
While I don't need large pieces, I have heard that they are notoriously hard to crack in general.
I finally have the info I need to grow my own!
I thank you profusely for the cracking advice as I thanked @foraygardengirl for this:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/f...

The two go together quite nicely!

I too had given up on cracking black walnuts. My tree seems to produce lots of nuts every other year, and since giving up on cracking them, I've had the job of disposing of many 5-gal. pails of nuts. This coming year should be a nut-production year, and I definitely will try again with chickhill's method!

I never stopped to think that some people didn't know this trick. Grandpa taught all of us kids and cousins and anyone he could get to sit down for a few minutes to crack them. We finally learned it was because he didn't want to do it. Grandma would have skinned him alive if she knew he was getting help from all the kids. We kept his secret too. One thing that Grandma taught us girls was, if you like them fresh or slightly baked and you keep getting a bitter taste from the skins, is to blanch them for a couple of minutes, put them on a towel and rub gently. The skins will come off easily and they taste so much sweeter.

crittergarden said:THANK YOU!
My grandmother's Christmas cookie recipe (dates back at least to 1920) has black walnuts in it.
While I don't need large pieces, I have heard that they are notoriously hard to crack in general.
I finally have the info I need to grow my own!
I thank you profusely for the cracking advice as I thanked @foraygardengirl for this:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/f...

The two go together quite nicely!

I meant to get that tip turned in after reading the article by foraygardengirl, as usual I get behind

KyWoods said:Oh, wow, and I gave up after the first try, decades ago! The squirrels get all ours. I may have to steal a few to try this!

You have to get to them before the squirrels do. They only get the good ones.

My dad picked up and stored a 5 gallon bucket in his garage till winter when he would have more time to crack them and the squirrels beat him to over half before he found out they were stealing them

You have to give those squirrels credit. Those are some tough nuts to crack

Great tip. Now if I only had a Black Walnut tree...
Grandpa-in-law built a wooden hulling trough and drove the car back and forth to get the hulls off (when cars were really heavy) - still messy but at least everything stayed put and didn't fly around. I was never part of the cracking to get the nut meat out.

greene said:Great tip. Now if I only had a Black Walnut tree...
Grandpa-in-law built a wooden hulling trough and drove the car back and forth to get the hulls off (when cars were really heavy) - still messy but at least everything stayed put and didn't fly around. I was never part of the cracking to get the nut meat out.

I still use my car! Then I put in 5 gal. buckets to rinse off any gravel or dirt. Next into an old wire chicken cage, rinse some more then let them dry. After drying they go into those drawstring mesh bags that fruit comes in, and in my utility room away from those thieving squirrels.
In the early fall go for a drive through the country, there are usually plenty on the roadside.

And the trees are easy to find because of the dark stains on the pavement

Also, around here walnut trees are some of the first to lose their leaves. I pick up a bucket full and leave till the following spring. They last a long time in their shell. By that time the hull is usually dry and crisp they just fall off. If you pick up a bunch you can take them to a hulling place give them half and keep half for yourself. As long as they get something out of it, you shouldn't have to pay a thing for their service.

OMG, this is hilarious!
I wish I had the stories of how my own ancestors got them out of their shells!

The CAR?????
omg.

And it's good to hear how to get the bitter off.
Almost everyone raves about my Christmas cookies, but every now and then there's someone who can't stand the nuts.

crittergarden said:OMG, this is hilarious!
I wish I had the stories of how my own ancestors got them out of their shells!

The CAR?????
omg.

And it's good to hear how to get the bitter off.
Almost everyone raves about my Christmas cookies, but every now and then there's someone who can't stand the nuts.

Yes, the car, truck, 4 wheeler any ole thing will do. Running over them makes short work of getting the hulls off. Sometimes I rake the hulls and discard other times mother nature does the job. I'm sitting here
Now this has struck me funny What you run over nuts with a car?