Pine seeds are found in pineapples and take about 18 months to mature. Since pine nuts are ready to harvest about 10 days before the cone starts to open, they are very difficult to remove. To speed up and facilitate the process, the cones are placed in a burlap bag and allowed to dry in the sun for 20 days. When the cones open, about 3 weeks or so, take out all the nuts inside.
You'll have a little tar on your hands, but it's removed with oil. If you're serious about harvesting your own pine nuts, you should explore some pine trees in early summer. Pineapples are usually ready to harvest from August to September, depending on where you live. Pine nuts ripen in late summer or autumn, and this is when you start harvesting pine nuts.
First, you will need pines with low branches that contain open and unopened pine cones. First, The Spruce Eat explains that while pine nuts are found in the seemingly ubiquitous pine cone, it's a long and nutty process before you can open them. It can take 15 to 25 years before trees begin to produce the seeds that contain these pine nuts. Once they do, another 18 months pass before they are ready to harvest.
Pine nut suppliers begin the seed collection process within 10 days of opening the pine cone. Everything is done by hand, and while patience is a virtue, cones are often placed in burlap bags for 20 days and left in the sun to aid in the process. The cones are then broken to extract the pine nut seeds and the secondary shell is removed. Talk about a lot of work for a little crazy, right? If you've ever bought pine nuts in the store, you're likely eating Chinese imports that are often of dubious origin.
According to Berkeley Wellness, pine nut mouth is described as a bitter, metallic aftertaste and can last from a few days to a whole week. Harvesting pine nuts is an arduous process and adds to the high price paid by most seed producers. They are expensive due to the time required to grow the nuts and the effort to harvest the seeds from their protective cover. These pines are native to the United States, although other pines with edible pine nuts are native to Europe and Asia, such as European stone pine and Asian Korean pine.
My mother tells stories about picking sprockets in Nevada as a child, entire families loading into the back of a van and leaving. This will cause the remaining pine nuts (the ones that have not yet been eaten by the creatures) to fall out of the cones and fall on the canvas. Obviously, this is not a quick compromise, as you will have to care for the tree for many years before you can harvest nuts. Most people just peel the pine nuts with their teeth, much like you would eat a sunflower seed with a shell.
Unless you can find a stray Italian stone pine planted somewhere as a gardening tree, oriental pine nuts are too small or have shells that are too difficult to disturb. So why bring the whole pussy home? I can see the nuts almost falling out of the cones that are still attached to the tree. Open pineapples indicate that the pine nuts are ripe, but you don't want them when it comes to harvesting pine nuts; they've already released their nuts. The easiest way to get the pine nuts out of the cone is to simply place the pine cones and let them dry on their own.
These tasty seeds are harvested from the tree's pineapples and are just one of 20 edible pine nut species.
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