It is at the top of an incline so is well drained. I think it is a Wilson's Wonder and is now 30 something years old.
Nuts at various stages or readiness.
While growing and maturing the nuts are enveloped in an outer green skin.When ready they split the skin as shown in the top picture and the nut falls to the ground or if low down I pick it straight off the tree and take off the green shell. ( wear gloves as the juice stains. )
The less time they spend lying on the grass the better.
I then bring them home and spread them out on an old sheet on the cobblestones in the sun. I do this every day for a week or more.
We then both either shell them or store them in sacks till we have time to do that .
Once shelled and very carefully quality controlled we store them in the freezer. This way they do not go rancid. ALMOST all walnuts for sale are rancid which gives them a bitter yukky taste.( people think that's how they are meant to taste and it's not ) I will have to do many more pick ups over the coming weeks.
This year I will be coveting my collection as we are getting ready to put our property on the market............ and this may be the last crop of nuts that are mine to collect.
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We are waiting for a contractor to come and reseed a slope of lawn up to the garden shed. Beside it is the nerine and orchid bed. I tidied it up and made a defined edge to seed up to.
Red Nerines do exceedingly well in my garden.( pink and white ones less so ) I have them in several spots and the flowering time varies accordingly. The flowers are good in a vase. Their bulbs sit up atop the soil and like to be sun baked. The clumps build up and up. I have potted some up as I don't want to be without them.
I wont be able to take my walnut tree or my copper beech tree both almost 40 years old, if we move to a smaller property but I can take a few garden favourites like bulbs.
It is a hard thing we have to do...we have lived here 40 years.
I don't envy you the task of moving after 40 years in your home, I hope when the time comes that everything falls easily into place for you. Fresh walnuts are like nectar from heaven - my father's cousin in Blenheim originally had a good size chunk of land with a few walnut trees, even after they sold and land was subdivided somehow the trees stayed on a patch of undeveloped land so Joan was able to wander along and still pick the nuts and a boxful came up to us, they were treasured.
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