There’s a sweet side to harvesting black walnuts on the Route 1 corridor and one Beltsville resident is taking full advantage of it.

Kenneth Younger grew up in Virginia, where his grandfather had a black walnut tree on his farm that he would harvest every year.

“He gave small jars of walnut kernels to the baker of the family for baking brownies, cakes, and pies,” he told the Hyattsville Wire.

Younger recently decided to start collecting black walnuts as a stress-relieving hobby after spotting a few black walnut trees while riding his bicycle from Cherry Hill Road on the Paint Branch Trail to Bladensburg Waterfront Park.

He was seen out last week collecting recently fallen black walnuts on the Paint Branch Trail in College Park, where if you look closely you can see black walnut trees from the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail from Hyattsville up to Lake Artemesia and beyond.

Harvesting black walnuts are a little tricky, as removing the husk and seasoning the nut takes a bit of work. Black walnut oil also can stain your hands and even concrete, so Younger recommends using a pair of rubber gloves.

But he says it’s worth the trouble because of the distinctive, rich flavor of black walnuts which his family adds to brownies, ice cream and other desserts, and they are expensive to buy.

Black walnut trees aren’t just good for their flavorful nuts, its wood can also be used to make furniture and parts of the tree have long been used in herbal medicine to treat a range of infections.

You can find a map of black walnut trees on the Route 1 corridor on Falling Fruit. While harvesting season is typically late September to early October, there are still several good black walnuts in the area that have recently fallen to harvest.

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