Almonds - Caring, Harvesting and Drying

Growing Almond Trees

Almonds are scattered across much of southern spain, lighting up the countryside with their blossom from mid January to mid February.

Watering

Almonds have a low requirement for water, and you do not generally see them being watered

Pruning

As with other fruit trees, almonds are generally pruned to keep the middle open to the light and to make it easier to harvest.

Harvesting

From the middle of August through to the end of September, you will see almonds picked by the traditional method, which involves laying nets on the ground and tapping the small branches of nuts so they fall onto the nets.
Other ways of encouraging the nuts to fall off the tree are to use a heavier piece of wood with rubber around the end which is hit against the tree trunk. A motorised tree shaker is also available but not common.

Many of our own trees are small and growing on steep slopes which would make nets difficult to use. These almonds are generally picked by hand into a bucket or a gardeners pouch - akin to a heavy duty apron with a pouch on the front. This is however a slower method of picking.

When grown on a larger, more commercial scale, a tractor mounted harvester is likely to be used. This has an arrangement similar of a large, upside-down umbrella, which wraps around the tree trunk while a vibrating mechanism shakes the tree.

De-husking

When the almonds are picked from the tree, some will still have the outer husk attached, although in most cases these will have split open and be partly separated from the shell. These will have to be removed, traditionally this would simply have been done by hand sat in a chair by a table or by a heap of nuts.

If you have more than a couple of hundred Kilos of almonds to deal with, you may consider it worthwhile purchasing an electric de-husker, which will do most (but not all) of this work for you.

Drying

Almonds Drying on an old Thrashing Circle

When the almonds have been picked, they will still have too high a moisture content to be stored (even in hot sunny weather). They need to be dried by spreading them out in a thin layer on a flat surface in the sunshine for one or two days.
When almonds are dry, they should rattle when you shake them