Tennis balls in my black walnut trees ?

[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