
Inside the World’s Largest Walnut Forest - fern12
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2017/inside-the-worlds-largest-walnut-forest/
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rdtsc
I know someone who grows and sells walnuts. They have their own trees, then
hire seasonal workers to crack them and extract the meat, package them and
sell in bulk to Western Europe. A truck full of shelled and packaged walnuts
can be worth $100k+. But those prices have been going down in recently.

Also if you get a chance, try green walnuts. They ones that are still in their
green soft outer hulls. Have no idea where you'd find them in US. But they are
pretty delicious - a completely different taste than the dried ones, I think
somewhat similar to avocado. The juice from the green outer hulls will also
stain anything they touch, including hands. Takes a few days to get it out,
but given the taste, it's worth it.

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3pt14159
My parents have two giant black walnut trees in their front yard in Norval, a
sleepy town outside of Toronto. I used to have to pick up hundreds or
thousands of these staining green balls of yuck. First couple years you go
through the trouble of eating a few, but they're harder to extract than normal
walnuts plus I was a kid and didn't appreciate it like I would at thirty-two.

One day I was out in yard after these bugger balls had started to fall and a
Jamaican accented guy in his 50s drives up our one way street. He stops the
car and asks if we're doing anything with the nuts. I say "we might eat 5 a
year, if you want 'em you can have 'em, but try to get them before my mum
yells at me" and that was it.

Twice a fall he drives up loads up his little car with walnuts and brings them
back to his Jamaican themed natural foods store where he and his wife clean
them and sell them.

What I love about this story is just how anti-internet it is. There was no web
crawler looking for excess nuts, no search engines, no cold emails or fake
users 'til you make it, just a dude driving around and a kid in a yard.

And a natural foods store that really lives up to its name.

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unwind
Awesome!

It would be "more Internet" if you took the chance and linked to the store (or
at least named it), giving folks in the area a chance to discover something
new and perhaps earn the man running the store a few extra dollars.

I know I would make an effort to go if I heard a similar local story. It's
more fun when there's some kind of connection.

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3pt14159
Haha, I would have if I could remember anything about the store. I don't even
remember the name of the nearby town that its in.

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mkl
I was thinking that the lack of undergrowth below the trees must be
artificial, but then on the Wikipedia page about walnuts I saw:

"[The trees] secrete chemicals into the soil to prevent competing vegetation
from growing."

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megaman22
Walnuts are hell on other plant life. I have a couple black walnut trees on
the edge of my lawn, and I have had to experiment a bunch to see what
vegetables I can actually get to grow in my garden...

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craftyguy
Did you find any that would grow in that environment?

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megaman22
Most greens (spinach, kale, swiss chard, beets) seem to do pretty ok. Green
and pole beans do quite well. Broccoli did alright, at least the plants,
though I had a pack of baby rabbits that savaged it when it was small, and it
never headed up after that.

Very mediocre results with my tomatoes and cucumbers this year, but it was
very, very dry.

Oh, and zucchini. But you can almost plant zucchini on asphalt and it would
find a way to produce bushels of the stuff...

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mudil
Walnuts were one of the first foods certified by the American Heart
Association as being heart healthy. Walnuts are especially high in omega-3
fatty acids.

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colinbartlett
Thanks for posting this, that whole site is new to me and it's pretty
incredible.

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joshdance
Same thought for me. Very cool site.

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HillaryBriss
> For former ranger Tarikov, the preservation of the ancient forest is the
> key. “If I had a million dollars, I would make a wall around the forest with
> checkpoints, great rangers with good salaries, and really encourage the
> wildlife to return,” he said.

they really get value for their money there. in Los Angeles a million dollars
would not cover the pension for a single retired police officer.

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Boothroid
Got a couple of reclaimed pieces waiting until inspiration strikes. Can
confirm: beautiful wood.

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netman21
Note these are not black walnut trees as found in the US. Of course walnut
wood is beautiful too.

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tomcam
Walnut is a dense and surpassingly beautiful hardwood. Makes great electric
guitar bodies.

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mrfusion
Someone should do a study on the health effects of the people living there.
Curious if the walnuts give them super health.

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craftyguy
What makes you think they would get "super health"?

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mrfusion
Walnuts are superfood. Rich in omega 3s.

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kiba
Why do I have a feeling that "superfood" is a marketing scam?

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24gttghh
I would assume anything being "sold" to you is a lie, until proven otherwise.

