When to pick walnuts?

[Mrs Trellis]

We have a couple of large walnut trees in our new garden.  How do we know when to pick them?  Or do we wait till they fall to the ground?The previous owner collected 24 on 24th June for St Jean's wine or something, but we want them ripe.

Also, when and how should they be pruned?

 

 

 

[Clair]

They'll fall on the ground when ready.

Do wear a pair of gloves and dark clothes when removing the husks or your hands and light-coloured clothes will be dyed dark brown for weeks afterwards.

Sorry, no idea about pruning... [:)]

[Pommier]

When we had walnut trees we used to wait until they fell before gathering them, then let them dry a bit before peeling off the outer coat (WEARING RUBBER GLOVES!!!) then letting them dry out.

We never pruned our trees, but there's a rhyme you might have heard 'A dog, a wife and a walnut tree; the harder you beat them the better they'll be' from which I'd assume that a hard pruning wouldn't hurt! 

[Clair]

[quote user="Pommier"]We never pruned our trees, but there's a rhyme you might have heard 'A dog, a wife and a walnut tree; the harder you beat them the better they'll be' from which I'd assume that a hard pruning wouldn't hurt! [/quote]

[quote user="Pommier"]We never pruned our trees, but there's a rhyme you

might have heard 'A dog, a wife and a walnut tree; the harder you beat

them the better they'll be' from which I'd assume that a hard pruning

wouldn't hurt! [/quote]

Not too sure about that... [:)]

We used to make walnuts fall by feeding a tall (3 or 4m long) stick (called une gaule) through the branches and beating them.

Gauler les noix (pics)

The walnut trees planted in our area are not pruned, though the walnuts are sold commercially.

[Jay]

[quote user="Mrs Trellis"]

...... collected 24 on 24th June for St Jean's wine or something...

[/quote]

Collect 24 green walnuts on 24 June and chop each one into several pieces. Soak in 5 litres of red wine mixed with a kilo of sugar. After a month add a litre of 100 proof spirit (eau de vie or vodka). Strain, bottle and keep till Xmas. Lovely, we make it every year

[Hoddy]

It's a good idea to keep the area under your trees as clear as you can. In our case it's grass so we keep it mown and then the nuts can be picked up by machine. It really is back breaking to do it by hand although a bit easier if you can do it on your hands and knees rather than continually bending and searching in the grass.

Hoddy

[idun]

I have friends who live near a town that announced itself, the walnut capitol of France. When we used to go and visit, we would see a sort of tractor getting hold of the trees and shaking them. Whether is was all that shaking every year, or poor roots, but after a big storm one year, we saw most of the walnut trees had fallen over. They were all pulled up straight again, props put against them and they were fine........ and all ready to be shaken the next season.

 

So you can do as Clair suggested or even shake the tree, or let them fall.

We were often given walnuts and I liked to leave them quite some time before using, as with sloe gin, xmas was sort of the date I would consider they would be 'ready'....  as I found them rather too bitter for my taste before then.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Pommier"]

When we had walnut trees we used to wait until they fell before gathering them, then let them dry a bit before peeling off the outer coat (WEARING RUBBER GLOVES!!!) then letting them dry out.

We never pruned our trees, but there's a rhyme you might have heard 'A dog, a wife and a walnut tree; the harder you beat them the better they'll be' from which I'd assume that a hard pruning wouldn't hurt! 

[/quote]I was thinking of the same rhyme  but I suspect it's not PC nowadays[:)]. I also think it should be taken literally with regard to Walnut trees and you should follow Clair's advice and use a stick to knock the nuts down.

[Kitty]

We had a very large walnut tree in our garden in France.  We would wait for some of the nuts to drop and then knock off the others.

BEWARE.  If you pick the walnuts too early, the green husks will stain your hands brown for weeks.

After a few years, we lost our tree suddenly from disease.  One autumn, it was attacked by honey fungus on the base on the trunk.  We treated this and thought that it had survived.  It flowered in May and then within the space of two weeks, completely died.  It was amazing how a tree that was 30 feet in height could be blighted in such a short space of time.

[Catalpa]

Now is the time to prune walnut trees - the worst time is early spring as the tree is becoming active again and the wound bleeds sap. However, if you want to prune after the wanuts have dropped that's fine too - just do it before it gets really cold so say by November.