Picking pecans is peaceful. My neighbors think I’m “nuts,” but I love to pick up pecans. The weather is brisk when pecans burst out of their hulls in the fall, but I find it a pleasant task to be outside harvesting one of the most effortless crops on the farm. The thing about pecan trees is it takes a minimum of 6 to 8 years to see a limited crop if planting grafted trees. A tree started from a nut may take as long as 18 to 22 years to reach full maturity. The life span of a healthy pecan tree either from seed or grafts is well over 40 years.
My friends have four pecan trees on their farm, and they are loaded. How do you harvest all that fruit without breaking your back from bending down and picking each nut up? It’s simple. You go to Buchheit and get a picker. My friends couldn’t find their old one so we called the Sparta store and had them hold two pickers so she could make a “flying run” to Buchheit. When the weather is semi-warm in November, and you have help, you buy the needed tools and harvest!
This tool is on a long pole so you can stand up and harvest. It’s amazing! I am grateful to the inventor of this device. In one of my seminars about Homestead Thrifting, we discussed the concept of buying quality tools the first time. This picker is an excellent example of the right tool for the job.
Norman, my 82-year-old farmer friend, is checking to see if all the pecans have fallen. The pecans burst out of the hulls and drop to the ground. After we harvest them, they will be laid out on tables to cure. If you don’t do that step, they might get moldy. Since they usually collect over 100 pounds of pecans, they will drop them off at a cracker. A cracker is someone who has invested in the equipment to crack the pecans without removing the fruit or nutmeat. That’s another useful tool. It is a tedious task to pick out the meat from the cracked pecans, but the industrial crackers remove the work of cracking each pecan by hand.
Norman planted this pecan tree when he was in grade school, so it has been an asset for well over 60 years and still produces fruit.
It takes time, even with the right tools, to pick up all the pecans but the warm weather has helped us gather in the harvest with less stress from the cold usually endured in early December. Hope you get a chance to plant some pecan trees this spring for future generations to enjoy or grab a pecan picker from Buchheit and harvest some pecans with a neighbor soon!
Be blessed! Anne May
