I know for some nut trees you can spread sheets or a tarp on the ground & shake them (that's how the commercial harvesters do it, with a machine) but if it's a big tree, shaking it by hand will probably be pretty hard. I think they're mostly harvested once they fall- that's what we do to get the nuts up at the local park. Discard any that have a little round hole in the outer shell- it means the weevil got there before you did. Not sure what to do about the nutbrained skirls.

btw, there was an older thread about ingenious nut crackers you might want to search for if you end up with a surplus!

Wait until the nut falls out of the tree, WITHOUT the outer shell. My expeirence is that a nut still in the outer shell is bad. The outer shell will open by nature and release the nut!!

Thanks for the info...I was wondering about the outer shell, fedup. So now its a race with the furry-tails! Wish me luck!