Nut farmer Robyn Scrivener has seen people throw shoes, even logs, to remove walnuts and chestnuts from her family's trees at Mt Irvine in the Blue Mountains.
If they aren't careful to "lock down picket fencing," visitors will attempt to dislodge nuts with them, too, she said.
Nut farms in the area had experienced "quite serious accidents with people falling out of trees", said Ms Scrivener, whose family owns the Kookootonga Chestnut and Walnut Farm which allows the public to pick their own nuts.
While most visitors are well behaved, some go to extremes. Kookootonga warns visitors not to "climb or throw objects at the trees as the risk of falls and injuries is too high and the nearest hospital is 45 minutes drive away".
The March-April nut season in NSW is celebrated and promoted by the slow food movement, yet visitors to Blue Mountains chestnut and walnut farms aren't always willing to wait until the ripe nuts fall to the ground.
After a huge Easter rush, farms were picked clean of nuts faster than expected.
Anne Elliott, the leader of the Slow Food movement in the Blue Mountains, said chestnut and walnut growers had been "absolutely smashed".
"There is nothing left," she said.
The group holds an annual chestnut weekend to educate the public on the staple that provides twice as much starch as potatoes and was used in Europe before the tubers were popular.
Ms Scrivener said her family's farm can never meet demand, especially for walnuts. "Because where else do you get fresh nuts?"
Nearby Nutwood Farm posted on Facebook that it was "clean out of nuts".
Co-owner of the Sassafras Chestnut and Walnut Farm, Alison Saunders, said people "do go crazy for fresh walnuts". Her farm's business near Nowra was growing every year: It attracts busloads of visitors, many who grew up in countries like Greece, Macedonia and Portugal, where these nuts were found in local forests.
To protect the trees, Sassafras farm doesn't allow visitors to pick the walnuts from the trees.
"We don't want our trees being beaten around, we don't want people climbing the trees," Ms Saunders said adding that staff patrol the perimeter of the walnut orchard.
Easter picking at Pine Crest Farm, near Bilpin, was so chaotic and crazy that its owner John Galbraith said he was considering not opening next Easter.
"It is a safety issue, with cars double parked and people waiting 15 to 20 minutes to pay, and fruit wasted on the ground," he said.
This story originally appeared on www.smh.com.au
