This year our trees are loaded with fresh pecans. Gene grew up with pecan trees in Newport News and when they moved to Powhatan, they brought some trees with them. We are on the edge of being too cold here but they do really well for us. Pecans are always the last trees to get their leaves in the spring and the last to loose them in the fall.
During the summer the pecans grow encased in a green hull (upper left hand corner of the picture). When they are ripe the hull turns brown, splitting open and releasing the pecan to fall to the ground. If the pecan falls with the green hull still attached they are not any good.
Not every year is a good year. Last year we didn’t get any but this year the ground is covered with hundreds of pounds of nuts from our two trees.
I have an electric nut cracker to crack the shells on the pecans but we have to pick them out by hand. Since we don’t live in “pecan country” they are no hullers around.
We put the nut into the shaft of the cracker and it cracks the nut and drops it out.
This saves us some time and makes them easier and faster to shell.
I like the end result!
