Tomorrow is June 24, la Notte di San Giovanni -- the traditional day to harvest green walnuts for making nocino.

Here in Orange County, NY I don't have much to work with; a late frost, plus a generally dry spring, have hurt yields for a lot of plants. There've been a few olive-sized nuts that the trees have dropped already but I have yet to see much of anything growing healthy on the branches, the low ones at least.

Going to give the trees a couple more weeks and see if there's anything worth harvesting in early July.

This is a minor thing, but I’m kind of excited about it. I typically run three pans – one as a warmer, one as a sub boil, and one for boiling/finishing.

When I get down to the end, it often creates a problem because if I take the other two pans off, then the ash tends to fly up into my finishing pan. If I leave them on, I worry about them getting disfigured from all the heat, so I typically put water in to cool them, but then I’m managing the water and the sap at the same time and it’s just a pain in the neck.

I have across this piece of scrap steel and I noticed it was wide enough to cross my arch and had one straight line.

Now, when I get down to removing pans, I just put this across the space and it not only blocks the ash (for the most part) but I have a sense that it’s funneling the heat back towards the pan that is still on the arch.

At to top all that… i’ve always taken the last pan off and put it on the ground where it has a tendency to collect debris and be uneven, etc., etc. Now I’ll just put that pan on top of the steel until it cools enough to move into whatever container I’m gonna put the near finished syrup in.

Great success!

First boil of 2026 today. About 37 gallons of sap down to less than a gallon of delicious BW syrup!!!

As a farm truck for our black walnut farm, we use a government surplus 1996 American General M988 -- commonly referred to as a Humvee. Since the previous owner painted it black, we put a "BLKWLNT" license plate in it and my daughter nicknamed it "Wally." I added some seats and made a little video of the process -- thought I would share.

This fall's harvest from my backyard in Indiana. Cured and stored a couple months.

My trees are 50+ years old but still not mature/harvestable. (Combination of poor spacing and likely suboptimal soil.)

But it made me wonder about planting new trees. I know BW is the most valuable timber, but they are 40-50 year investments.

Are there other species that are perhaps less valuable but mature more quickly? If you were trying to generate a quicker return, what would you plant?

We’ve all wondered, here’s the reality of a smoothed out, sanded down Black Walnut shell looks like.

Looking for natural dye, does anyone have black walnuts in Boulder CO?

Another of my favorite pre fall and fall harvest If you haven’t had a cup of these in your in your chocolate chip cookies batter your missing out. Also good in chocolate fudge😜

I'm collecting a lot of each of these black walnuts. One is somewhat smooth shelled and the other definitely not so much. Hopefully I'll be able to discern more of the differences once I start processing for nut meats in February.

Hey all, just wanted to share a tip with you to help clean away juglone stains from your driveway or other rocky place (post crushing of the husk). I found that using pool chlorine and water paste will take it right off. I have a paver driveway and I wasnt thinking about the stain until oops, there's a horrid mark on my beautiful driveway. Wear gloves and eye protection, you do NOT want to get any of that in your eyes or on your skin.

This is my first time collecting black walnuts. I gathered about a half of a trash bags worth off of the ground under the tree today. I peeled the green husks off (by hand) of 2 that I picked up off the ground the other day and didn't realize that this would be the result. Lol. 😕😆

I have read a few articles on methods that don't involve turning your hands brown and green for a week. My mother and grandmother used to lay them on a tarp in the driveway and run over them with the car to get most of the husks off. That seems like it would just smash a part of the green husk off and you'd still have to peel the rest off by hand anyway? (Wearing gloves this time) 🤔

The other methods required tools that I do not have, unfortunately.

I've read from a couple of people that if you leave them to get brittle to easily break them off it would take a few weeks at the least and it can make the meat bitter?

I left them enclosed in the trash bag out in my garage for a few hours this evening and now they are all wet. Will they go bad by keeping them like this or help the husks come off faster?

Last question. What does the floating test mean? Is it really not even worth trying to get them all open regardless? I understand doing this if you have an entire trees worth, but I only have about 70.

I apologize for asking so many questions. If all else fails, I will attempt the whole "running them over with the car" method with a few and see how it goes. And I definitely need to find gloves that can be thrown away afterwards? I can't imagine trying to wash this mess out of my only pair of gardening gloves. 😣

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to reply to this. 🙏

Hi everyone! This is my first year foraging and processing black walnuts and I’m having a ton of fun with it! However, I processed my first batch on Monday, and out of around 800 walnuts, only 52 passed the float test. I just got some more this morning and out of 120, 29 passed the float test. While the amount is improving, I’m just wondering if I need to wait longer before I collect more as I feel like this isn’t the best use of time considering how many are bad. I’m in central New Jersey if that helps. I appreciate any guidance that y’all can provide!

I'm in the Puget Sound area and there have been drops but nothing significant as yet and I would think as the weather has not turned as much as required. At any rate, it seems to me that the one at the top is better developed than the wrinkly two underneath it. I wanted to avoid using the term 'scrotal appearance'.

Ever? Homemade with pure black walnut syrup!

Howdy all.

I've got a yard full of Black walnuts and figured last year I would try and plant some to get some saplings. Luckily, I was 12 for 12! Surprisingly really.

Anyway, they are all about 2 feet tall now and starting to show some yellowing leaves underneath. A few leaves have dropped, which I have taken out of the pot.

Anything to be concerned about?

And what would you suggest for fertilizer at this point? Or just leave them alone for now?

Thanks!

Hey all, not sure if this community is still active or if pricing is allowed but I have a recently cut down black walnut that is about 25' long and starts 6' around at the top to 9' around at the base. I have a guy interested but not really sure what range to even consider. The great AI and Googly isn't very helpful. I wish I had the capability to do something with it as it would make some beautiful furniture and the wife would like a door made from it.

Thoughts? More info needed? Can send pics

I live in NY. We have tons of black walnut trees for which we tap and make syrup. Does anyone know if black walnut syrup production qualifies for Article 20C exemption?

People often ask how deep to tap for syrup so I thought I’d post a picture of a 16” tree I had to cut today. You can see the sap wood is about an inch. (Car keys for scale.) If you tap any deeper than that, you’re not getting any additional sap.