More hickory nuts, what they look like

The Bear is a tough kid to manage when outside.  Come to think of it, it's a challenge when he's inside, too.  He is a kid's kid; always running, climbing, and running off exploring.  Although, he's tough to keep up with, it's a joy to see him on the move.

While managing one of his expeditions across the front yard to the orchard, I noticed there seemed to be some more hickory nuts on the ground.  I had The Boy and The Girl help harvest what they could find.  It was a pretty nice haul.

Also, for those who aren't quite sure what to look for, here are a few examples of what a fallen hickory nut may look like.

From bottom left: grossly under-ripe hickory nut in husk, somewhat under-ripe nut in husk, nut in husk and ready to come out, hickory nut.

We have snow peas!

Nothing super notable, but it's nice to see that we have some snow peas developing.  Technically, they're sugar snap peas.  Still, nice to see that some fall crops are starting to produce.

Sifting through the hickory nuts

As I mentioned a few posts ago, we obtained some hickory nuts both from the in-laws as well as some on our property.

Yesterday afternoon, we did what is called "a float test" on the hickory nuts.  It's called that because you fill a vessel (a large bucket or trough) with water and toss in a bunch of hickory nuts.  Those that sink are denser than the water so you know they're loaded with nutty goodness.  Those that float may be bad.  The floaters need to be paid more attention -- a worm could have gotten in or the nut may have rotted inside the shell.  Some floaters are still good, though.  You don't know until you crack it open.

After doing the float test, we found some that passed.

A lot of them failed the test.  We were surprised by the large proportion.  We suspect that we shouldn't have left the nuts out to dry as long as we did.

We started cracking into the hickory nuts.  Of the ones we got into, maybe 1/5 of the total were bad for one reason or another.

We are keeping the hickory shells for now.  We've read that they are a very pleasant addition to a wood fire.

We are also experimenting with different methodologies of breaking them open.  Wifey used a nutcracker while I used a pair of channel-locks.  I tried the nutcracker first, before trying the channel-locks.  I felt like I had more control over the channel-locks, could impart more force on the nut thanks to the longer lever arms, and could grip the nuts better thanks to the teeth on the wrench.

We're still working on the approach.  As you can tell from the picture above, there is some wasted nut meat that we left inside the shell.  We decided it wasn't worth spending a ton of time trying to get every little bit out, especially, when some had been tainted by shell shards in the meat.  We'd rather abandon some of the nut meat than take a chance in feeding shell to someone.

The walnut bits that we did keep are in the freezer until we get cracking, again.

Expanding the Orchard: Adding Raspberry Plants

Since inception, I've wanted to convert the far field into an orchard.  Since moving in, we've struggled with having enough time to work on it, tried to work around when it's best to plant things, and had a big drain on the wallet for a variety of reasons. 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I ordered some Royalty purple raspberry plants.  They arrived just in time for us to go out of town to visit Wifey's parents so my parents have held onto them until I could retrieve them.

I took the day off so The Bear could get tubes put in his ears.  Once all that was successfully accomplished, I dug four holes in the orchard to accommodate the four Royalty plants.  The Boy and The Girl provided copious amounts of moral support.

Some details about the hole-digging:

According to the Maryland cooperative extension, purple raspberry plants need to be a minimum of 3' between plants with a minimum of 8' between rows.  To be on the safe side, I dug each hole such that the center is 4' apart with 10' between the base of the blueberries and the center of each hole.

I've seen how much space some of the blueberry bushes take up from many trips to Larriland Farm and I've seen how large some of the raspberry plants can get on their guide lines.  Although my tendency is to try to maximize the number of plants in a given area, I think encouraging airflow is necessary.  Also necessary is the ability to allow the plants to stretch out their growth.  Thus: 4' and 10' distances.

Other useful info:

The botanical name is Rubus strigosus 'Royalty'.  According to the cooperative extension, a "bramble" type is any species belonging to the Rubus genus.

Cleaning up the garden for fall crops, part 5

More garden cleanup.

Upon unpacking the car, we all tackled harvesting beans and tomatoes.  Not much to report on there.

While The Girl played in the yard, Wifey, The Boy, and I removed a number of tomato plants and The Boy's watermelons.  It looks a good bit better now.  More to go, but it's better.

The fall cleanup series of posts began on August 29.

Wifey helps a Monarch

Sure, it might actually be a Viceroy, but we'll call it a Monarch.

Yesterday afternoon, Wifey saw a Monarch butterfly fitting about in the side yard.  It seemed to be having a hard time getting aloft.  She had it land on her hand so we decided to take it to the wildflowers growing by the orchard.

It ended up flying off on our way over to the flowers.  Perhaps it just came out of its chrysalis?

Further reason for us to work toward putting in the wildflower gardens in the spring.

Oh. So we have hickory trees. What in the world do we do now?

Please bear with me, this is going to be a long one.  If you know me, you aren't surprised.

A few weeks ago, Wifey handed me a nut while we were driving down the road.  I said, "that's lovely.  Why are you handing me this nut?"  She replied that the kids (The Big Two) had collected a bucket of them from the side yard and hulled them themselves.  She also told me she was pretty sure it was a type of hickory tree.  She's much smarter than I am with that sort of thing so I believed her.

Husband Pro Tip: If she's better than you at something, compliment her every chance you get.  Also, try to learn from her so you don't keep using such awesome vocabulary like, "thingy."

Or in my case, "You know......that tree over there that isn't the pawpaw, oak, pine, or maple.  No, not that one.  THAT one."

Fast forward to last Thursday.  I recruited The Big Two to collect more of the nuts while I was mowing the lawn.  Once I finished, I helped them and enjoyed it immensely.

Last weekend, Wifey and I relayed what we had done and my mother-in-law (she's awesome, too, by the way) replied, "well, you know we have hickory trees here, too.  The Girl and I spent a few hours collecting nuts off the ground shortly thereafter.

Wifey did some research and, apparently, Buckeyes look similar to Hickory nuts and are inedible.  She (and her mom) have determined that my in-laws' trees aren't Buckeyes by comparing the leaves of the trees.  My in-laws have three Shag Bark trees and a Pignut Hickory.

Once all was done, we sorted the hulled nuts from those that need to dry out.

There were also some that were able to come out of the hulls (outer skins).  The Boy and I were able to remove some of the hulls from the nuts.  As the nuts dry, it's supposed to be much easier to do the removal as the hull shrinks away from the sides of the nut making it easier to try it apart.  Also, the four "petals" of the hull spread out making it easier to open.

Since we'd collected a number of the nuts, we cracked them open to try the nut meat ourselves.  After reading a number of suggestions online, we hit the nuts about 1/3 of the way down from the tip with a hammer against a brick.  It wasn't foolproof.  We will be trying other ways to open them.

We really enjoyed the nuts.  In general, they had a mild flavor with a hint of a maple-like undertone.  From what we've read, they can be used as a substitute for pecans or walnuts in baking.  We did find, though, that the hickory nuts that came from the green hulls had a little bit more of a bite to them and weren't as mild in flavor.

After getting back home, I spread the un-hulled nuts out on a piece of scrap plywood to dry in the sun.  From what I've read, it's recommended to leave them to dry for a few weeks.

I also took the hulled nuts and put them in a basket to dry out some as well.