Walnuts - gathering nut nutrition

I was called down to the gardens again, by the big nut tree which sits in front of my house in the Italian medieval quarter... I thought it was a bit superfluous, as two days before I'd already taken what my neighbours had pciked up from their gardens...

I dutifully answered the call, all the same, and started picking up off the steps, then followed the trail, and ended up gathering a whole basket from under 3 walnut trees across the gardens.

A friend commented on the short videos that I shared, that he'd had little success gathering walnuts, as they invariably were rotten inside - and I thought, in responding to him with some tips to get the best walnuts, that actually there is a bit of an art to it: so here are some wee tips for getting best walnuts;

1. be vigilant about when the nuts are ripening - and pick them up as soon after they fall as possible
2. get sensitive to the subtle weight and feel of a 'full' but - they're heavier then 'empty' ones
3. glance at the seal of the nut, as you can tell if they've been opened by their fall, and then you can prise them fully open to check if they have a full nut inside or not
4. check subtle clues too, in where the nuts are lying - not all damp nuts will be useless, but you can make an educated guess about the ones tucked further into a corner, how they might be too far gone
5. going out on a windy day when the nuts are falling is best, as more will have fallen - a dry windy day is even better
6. leave the nuts in an airy, dry place to remove any moisture that is in the covering encasing outside of the nutshell

I tend to roll the nuts underfoot, as I show in the video, to clean the casing off the hard nutshell: if a nut has dried its casing on the tree, it might be too hard to crack underfoot like this, but using a nutcracker it'll break up easily.

This beautiful #naturalmedicine loot is going to be made into a raw nut butter, with my brilliant Norwalk food factory and press juice... Cannot wait!

Blessings on an abundant harvest for all!
Clare