Tennis balls in my black walnut trees ?

[UNCLEBUCK]

Look like big green pears hangin everywhere ? Gorp 




They are huge  !  Could it be ? Could it really be a ?  Never seen anything like this before so I hope someone will take a moment and splain ? Thanks a bunch 

[thurlow]

I've played my share of tennis; never seen any balls without seams/lines, so I doubt they're tennis balls..................of course, I've never seen any immature balls, so could be??  On another thread, someone was trying to identify some large black balls ;  maybe these are the immature stage of them.................

[Riles]

You were expecting maybe bowling balls in your black walnut tree?

[DanG]

Them ain't tennis balls, they're Grapefruits.  Buck, you're probably the very first person to ever grow Grapefruit in Minnesota.  You're gonna be famous!

[Texas Ranger]

DanG! I hope you guys are funnin.

[UNCLEBUCK]

Boy I am puzzled now as I have watched this tree grow since it was a twig and it came from Gurneys along with a big order of other things. Never seen a walnut tree make walnuts so I had to ask . I have seen walnuts in the store but thought maybe they are green on the tree or something ?   A grapenut tree     Maybe gurneys got it bagged wrong but I will have to cut one of these thingys off tomorrow and report !

DanG , I am going to hoot and holler if youre right 

Watch out for the walnut trees granny would shout out when I mow lawn . I have more of these around the yard . I am puzzled and excited and might have to go back to this tree right now , yep , I'm going ,  this is too exciting ! Thanks all

[Tom]

If those are walnuts, make sure you have on rubber gloves if you cut them open.  They will stain you a pretty brown and it will last a long long time.

[UNCLEBUCK]

Well I guess I should have just taken one off today and did a examination , planted 500 of these and alot died because it gets 40 below zero here so never had the chance to ever see one grow except the ones I planted around the yard where the snow gets very deep . I am totally amazed at this second skin around the walnut .   Its a DanG black walnut !  My first crop of walnuts! Thanks   

[beenthere]

Looked like black walnut 'walnuts' all along. That green husk will turn black fast, and be real black, and like Tom says (never doubt him  ) the black will stain.  The nut inside can be washed clean (I do it in a 5 gal bucket and use the hose to tumble them around) and then spread them out to dry. Once dry, the meats inside can be removed by cracking the shell.
I use the vise in my shop to crack them. More controlled than a hammer.    The meats make great cookies and cakes, when added.

Here is a MN site on black walnut harvesting

[Patty]

Buck, are walnut trees that scarce up where you are? I was a little suprised to read this thread. If you let the squirrels plant those walnuts you will someday have a whole yard full of beautiful trees. 

Hey, nice pen there in the photo. 

[JimBuis]

When those walnuts start falling, lay them out together on some hard ground and drive a car back and forth over them to take off the external husk.  It makes it alot easier to come along then and pick up the walnuts to get them ready for cracking.  Cracking that inner shell is a real job. I agree that a vise would be helpful.  I wouldn't try one of those cute little household nutcrackers on them.  Unless the nutcracker has a handle 12" or more in length, it usually won't stand a chance.  The shell will just laugh at you.  Also, don't even think about a hammer.  You can break them that way, but the pieces become instant shrapnel.  There's been more than one emergency room visit caused by walnut shrapnel.

Jim

[DanG]

This reminds me of something my Brother-in-law was telling me.  Lil' Sis bought a bag of grapefruit that turned out to be not very good.  They were dry and had poor flavor, so they didn't eat them.  After they set around in the house a few days, BIL took them out and tossed them into the edge of the woods across the road.  The next day, a crew of laborers stopped there to take a break in the shade and found the grapefruits scattered under the pines.  They all sat down and had a feast of this mystery fruit.  BIL said it was hilarious watching a bunch of Guatamalans running around looking up into the pine forest for more fruit.

Those walnuts look a lot like the Tung nuts on that other thread.  They have a thick husk also, but there are several nuts inside.  I have one that is about dried out now, so I'll take some pics and put them over there.

[beenthere]

DanG
UB's first pic reminded me so much of your pic of the tung nut, that I thought initially that UB was pulling our leg and using your picture to do it. I didn't take the time to look up your picture to compare. 

[UNCLEBUCK]

Should have seen the look on my face when I cut the hide off of this green thing , I really thought I had me a special tree or something   

I am just amazed about this as I am in zone 3 .

Thank you beenthere for the info and link which I am going to study and thanks Jim Buis for the tips . Thanks Tom for the info and thanks Patty for the handcrafted wooden pen     DanG had me goin because quite some time ago I planted peaches and pears , plums,cherries, apricots and some other stuff and thought I really had me baby grapefruit or something    I am so excited especially after losing 500 trees to the harsh winter .  They are beautiful trees and if it would have snowed more I believe the 500 planted would have survived because they really did well the first summer and were very hardy .  It gets so cold here there is no rattlesnakes or possum or black walnut so I will take very good care of these . I planted those 500 black walnut transplants so someday 60 years from now my little nephew would have a ace in the hole if he ever got into a financial fix but I think I might try another 500 next spring and plant them all in a better snow catch area .  Things I learn here are sometimes overwhelming 

[Tom]

Uncle Buck,
I don't know how you are planting these, but...

One of my customers was growing some on his property here.  We don't have Black Walnut here except for what some nut brings in. 

He gave me a sack full (seems he had an abundance. ) and asked if I knew how to plant them.  "Nope".

He said that all he does is kick them around the yard until he finds a place that looks like it needs a tree and then he steps on it.   It smushes down into the ground till it's about level with the surface and he goes off and forgets it.  Next thing he knows (he says) there's a tree growing there. 

[Texas Ranger]

Tom. you let the secret out.  Years ago my family was establishing a walnut plantation up in Missouri.  We would buy X number of seedlings from the state, and plant them.  We began noticing that the chipmonks would bury nuts all over the yard (Yard had a half dozen big black walnut trees), by father, being the source of all my knowledge and considerable talent in saving sweat, started taking walnuts out and stomping them in the ground where he wanted trees.  Worked.

[SwampDonkey]

That's about what I do Tom, with mine. Also, with the butternut seed. Actually, the butternut on my lawn simply germinated where they fell, I didn't have nut'n to do with it. See, we have this thing they call frost that upheaves the topsoil and by spring they are burried just deep enough. But, usually I make use of a dibble bare for  making a shallow hole, plunk the seed in ,husk and all, and by July I got trees. I have germinated walnut from Virginia and NC sources, not very hardy up here in Zone 4b. Not sure if the seed from my young walnut trees took cause they are impossible to find in among shrubs that are the same colour or leaf shape. I've gotta start harvesting some basswood seed before the rainy season hits so I can have them in the ground. I could pick a paleful off my yard trees this year.

[jon12345]

When I was doin some googlin on nut trees I came across somethin that said there is a type of walnut that can grow up in canada, if I can find the name of the variety I'll edit.

[SwampDonkey]

Jon, I have two. They are native to southern Ontario, around Lake Erie. I got mine from Quebec. I know a couple other people around that have some black walnut as well. I have a few seed again this year. The trees were planted in '92 They seem to grow as fast as aspen trees.

[jon12345]

I read about this on southern ontario nut growers website, doesn't say what the variety was, just that there was one that would grow in zone 3.

[SwampDonkey]

Sure it's not butternut they are discussing. Come to think of it, it may not even grow their either. Hmm, I do remember seeing some at the botanical garden in St Jaques, NB though, which would be in zone 3. Our butternut are alot more frost hardy than the walnut I have, but we have to have a winter with alot of days below 0 F before I notice much die back in the spring. Last 3 years have been above zero with alot of teens and twenties, occassional thirties and forties. On rare occassion we can get up to 60.

[Left Coast Chris]

Uncle Buck,    I live in zone 9 here on the left coast .......... practically a bannana belt and have about 4 acres of comercial walnuts left that we grow and harvest.  They are english walnuts on Calif. black walnut root stalk.   We do have a number of rootstalk (black walnut) that we have let grow.    When ever we have a near crop failure because of rain or frost the trees will have only a few nuts on them that are HUGE...... like the ones you are showing.    The tree is normally wall to wall nuts (3 tons per acre), when its sparce..... you get the giants.     If you have a really warm year some time you will probably have many more and smaller (normal) nuts.   

I guess we get allot more nuts out here on the left coast.....both botanical and human 

[Minnesota_boy]

Buck, are walnut trees that scarce up where you are? I was a little suprised to read this thread.

Patty,
Uncle Buck was funning you a bit when he said that it gets to 40 below in winter.  It really gets nearer to 50 below and black walnut really struggle to survive.

Although we are seperated by only about 100 miles, Uncle Buck is in zone 3 while I am in zone 2.  Don't even think about planting black walnut here.  I've seen the thermometer sit at 57 below and not far away people reported 65 below.

[SwampDonkey]

Just finished planting some walnut, butternut and basswood on the woodlot. I noticed the odor of the walnuts oil on the husks, quite nice if someone could find a way to make incense from the oil.

[UNCLEBUCK]

farmer77 thanks for that info and I have been to your state about 200 times and always loved the smell of California , the smell of money  The pines coming across Donner and then quickly changing to citrus and then the smell of the hayfields and then the ocean smell ! Always enjoyed it !

I noticed before  I cut the hide off this walnut that it almost smelled like cologne and had a really nice smell to it .

The link that beenthere gave me pretty much has me prepared now for the processing part and it is so interesting and I cant wait to go to the freezer and dump a ziploc bag of these walnuts into the homemade ice cream bucket .

I still laugh hard when I read Dang's story about the guatemallan's 

My theory was when I planted these 500 transplants that in 10 years a custom harvesting crew would come and shake the trees and then I read that shaken trees make shakey lumber . I planted 3 rows a half mile long each and it was may 1st and it did not rain for 30 days but you couldnt tell it by how fast the transplants really shot up and I thought I was a genious  but as Minnesota Boy says we really are in a area that is pushin the limits for black walnut . It costed only .38 cents a piece for these transplants from the Willow River Nursery over by Duluth,Mn so its not bad for a loss its just that when spring rolls around I really was hoping for them to survive .

Sure is some pretty trees and many branches so I can see why people like them for yard trees .  I got white oak acorns on the ground here everywhere now and the only thing I ever did with those was use them in our slingshots as kids . I am just fascinated by these black walnut ! 

[jkj]

The smell of the husk IS wonderful!

I throw them in long pile in a sunny spot of my gravel driveway and normal driving breaks off the hull while green without hurting the nut.  The hull turns black and dries in just a couple of days, then I pick up the walnuts.  The quanitiy from a tree varies from year to year. Last year I picked up about 25 gallons (with hulls removed).  The year before I had six walnuts.

Don't touch any crushed or cut wet green or blackening husks or it will dye your skin brown. The blackened hulls can be used to make brown dye and wood stain.
Try not to have a tree close to a public road, since walnuts dropping from a very high tree can damage the hood or roof of a car.   Don't grow walnut trees withing 30' of the garden since the toxic juglone chemical in the roots and elsewhere will inhibit the growth of many types of plants.

For getting out the nuts in big pieces after cracking them with a hammer, the best thing I've found is a wire clipper with a slightly pointed nose.  This lets me selectively apply a lot of force to break the hard shell rather than the nut inside.

JKJ

[jon12345]

You might be able to find some spots where microclimate is more conducive to the growth of black walnut.  Since you planted over such a large area, I'm sure it won't take long for the spots to become apparent.  What kind of an area did you plant them in?

[UNCLEBUCK]

The 500 trees that died were on the east side of a open field where the snow piles up nice but there wasnt much so they died just like alot of alfalfa fields did that year without a nice snow cover . The one living in the yard get alot of snow cover jon .

Thanks for the tips jkj , hope everyone shows pics of there walnut harvesting this fall !  I know I will because I am now a walnuthead 

[Corley5]

Grandma has black walnuts in her yard and absolutely hates them.  We cut the one down by her house last year.  Imagine the nuts falling on your roof for a couple weeks each fall after the first couple hard frosts.  Any new trees she finds growing get RoundUp   Squirrels also become a problem due to the trees.  We had to pull an exhaust manifold on an H Farmall once because the squirrells had filled it and the muffler with nuts.  We never did figure out how they climbed up the muffler to drop the nuts in or how they figured they were going to get them back out.  We always put soup cans over the mufflers of anything parked in those barns after that

[SwampDonkey]

For some reason my local red squirrels never touch the walnuts. They'll lay all fall and spring on the ground untill I hit them with the mower or toss them. They go directly to the butternuts. The grey squirrels might go for walnuts, and I rarely see them here. As mentioned earlier I have picked a few this fall and planted them in sunny spots in the woods. Has it been hot where you guys are this late in the summer. It's been humid and dry here for a long while, but it beats snow. Feels like July weather.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Take green mushed up walnut hulls and put them in a tow sack with a rock.  Put it in a pond or creek and the fish will come to the top.  Then you can fill your freezer for the winter.   This may be illegal in your area so you did not get this from me.   But if you have a pond that needs defished it is a good natural way to "get-er-done".

[Furby]

My nuts are gone!!!

I mean my walnuts!
My tree was loaded and now it has nothing and there is nothing on the ground either.
DanG tree rat ate my peaches too.
Was over at my Aunt and Uncles the other day. The big walnut that hands over the fence is just loaded this year.

[jon12345]

A few weeks ago when I was at work I saw a grey squirrel runnin back and forth along the peak of a house across the road, after I watched him for a while I realized what he was doing,  there was a walnut/butternut tree hanging over the roof of the house, the squirrel was taking nuts and putting them down the chimney    Man are those people in for a suprise when they light their furnace 

[SwampDonkey]

I wonder what hickory smoked walnuts are like?

[OneWithWood]

Good timing on this post UB. 

I got my first bunch of walnuts from the trees I planted 6-7 years ago