Black walnut seeds back in stock!
October is here and that means Black walnut (Juglans nigra) is back in season! It's a race against time to collect as many as possible to process and get the seeds. Picking up the walnuts is slow and time consuming, and then they require quite a lot of processing in order to clean the seeds.
Once the thick hull of the walnut is cut away, the smaller seeds within are able to be extracted. The hull of the Black walnut accounts for maybe 30-40% of the seed's volume, so a lot of waste product is produced. This organic stuff can just be re-used by putting it into the garden, but beware that the walnut compounds are toxic to certain types of plants and trees like tomatoes and apples.
The shell needs to be thoroughly cleaned because it has a highly convoluted shape that causes pieces of the husk to adhere to the shell. This requires more processing where the walnut seeds are put into a container, and agitated with warm water to get the hull off. The process creates a highly concentrated brown dye that will stain anything it touches!
The seeds are run through the process again and again, until they are clean enough to be used. At that point they are laid out to dry and cure, because they can't be put into long-term storage if they are too moist.
Black walnuts are a messy business, so save yourself the hassle and buy from us! You can find black walnut here.