Answers to Common Questions as of Nov. 17, 2025: These walnuts ship from our farm in Northern California, so shipping to the east coast is 5-9 days depending on the day of the week you order and where you live. If you don't receive a confirmation email, you should check your spam folder. Same for our shipping confirmation number. Yes, these are harvested October 2025. I just sold out of certified organic in shell, and uncertified buffer zone crop will likely sell out by Thanksgiving. Light halves and pieces will be available around then. The light halves and pieces will be from my Uncle's orchard and not certified organic. No there are no special deals on large quantities. The prices are as listed on this website. No I don't haggle. Yes there are cheaper walnut sources elsewhere. Yes, I am actually the farmer. -Asa
NOT certified Chandler English Walnuts IN SHELL | 8lb Box | Fall 2025 Buffer Zone and Other Hand Harvested Crop | Screen Dried
NOT certified. That's why these nuts are cheaper. They are grown in the same orchard as the organic walnuts, but these are from trees that were too close to the house or other buffer zones to be certified and therefore have to be harvested and sold separately as NOT organic. Expect 10-15% dark nuts or blanks and some small tip shrivel on many nuts, which is typical of Chandler walnuts, and does NOT indicate overdrying or age... it's caused by the nut meat not filling out the tips as it grows. We may have a slightly higher percentage of this since we don't use commercial fertilizers like some of the larger growers. Also, Chandler's have thin shells. No they are not overdried or old because they are easy to crack. That's one of the reasons Chandlers gained popularity... thin shells increase edible yield percentages by weight... Also, in the opinion of my Uncle, Chandlers are a little less oily than, for example, a Hartley, so be aware of that. Commercially that helps them maintain the lighter color through hot growing conditions and processing, which helps with the export markets to places where they view lightness as the primary indicator of quality. I have sold Howards to someone who likely was experienced with Chandlers, he looked at the meats and told me they were old due to some oil he saw in them... even though I knew I picked them up earlier that week. I showed him a bag of chandlers same pick up time and he said they were fresh...My uncle told me because Chandlers are less oily and he was probably looking for oil run but didn't understand the varieties. Similarly, I have sent our Chandlers to someone likely used to Hartleys and they thought they were old and a bit dry. Anyway, just be aware that these are harvested October 20th-21st 2025 and screen dried since then and the variety is Chandler. They are not pumped full of chemicals, edible meat yield is likely around 41-43% and yes there is some characteristic tip shrivel although the majority of customers won't notice. Likely no extra-light grades since we didn't use ripeners to pull them off early, but light grade percentage should be 80-90% even without the commercial aspiration and air leg to pull some of the blows. Light is NOT bright white... I just got back the wholesale grades on the bulk of the crop from a commercial packer that used electronic color grading and it was 95% light grade... outstanding commercial grade! That is by pixels in a photo, no human subjectivity... there are some people convinced that lighter is better and think that the extra light of a wet or even a green walnut or of a ripener accelerated harvested nut is what every good nut should look like... blind taste tests would say otherwise I think... Anyway, the majority of people just want great tasting freshly harvested walnuts, which these are, and they don't care about what I wrote above. But if you're one of the 1/100 people who thinks you are an expert in walnut quality be sure you read and understand the above...or PLEASE order from another source.
There are inevitably some imperfect nuts when buying in shell, so please understand that prior to ordering. These have been hand harvested and sorted, so major visibly defective nuts have been excluded but many defects cannot be seen without cracking open the shell. In addition, since these were not commercially processed, no air leg or aspiration was used, which can reduce blanks by sucking them up, so there may be slightly more of these than you would get in a top graded commercially processed batch. These are NOT bleached and polished, so if you want "bright" shells for display, these are NOT the walnuts for you. There may be some dirt and/or staining on some shells. Also for those who ask, yes these are guaranteed non-GMO. Thankfully, at the time of writing this there are currently no GMO walnut trees yet, and these trees were planted a couple decades ago using traditionally bred and propagated Chandler walnuts with black walnut root stock. NOTE: there are a few franquette English walnut trees in the orchard for pollination and you may get a few of them in a box. They are fine for eating, a bit harder to crack than the thin shelled Chandlers.