How to harvest, dry and store your macadamia crop
So you have grown a delicious crop of macadamias - what now? How to harvest and store your nuts.
- Collect the nuts: Nuts usually fall to the ground when they are ready to eat and it’s best to collect them up as soon as possible. If they haven’t fallen by the end of Spring, you can pick the nuts from the tree.
- Remove the husks: Do this immediately. Husks can be mulched and used in the garden or composted.
- Dry the nuts: You’ll need a dry place with a steady temperature above 30°C. This could be a sunny, north-facing window sill or a shelf next to a hot water system. A dehydrator will also work, but we don’t recommend using the oven.
- Get cracking: Macadamia shells are notoriously hard so you’ll need a specialist nutcracker to remove the edible kernel. You can eat the nuts raw or roast them to intensify their buttery flavour.
- Store the kernels properly: The cracked kernel will keep for a few months in an airtight container kept in a cool, dry location such as the fridge, and longer in the freezer.
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