Walnut tree clean-up

[masraum]

Originally Posted by stevej37

A couple pics of the walnut pile taken last fall. None to add to it this year.
I spray the pile down with Round-Up when they start sprouting.

We've known you were nuts, but had no idea how nuts!
That's a lot of nuts!

Originally Posted by stevej37

^^^ Lol...Yes it is.
A few years back, I tried dumping them into my 65 gal roll-a-way garbage cart.
I got a call from the service saying that they would cancel my account if I did it again because the walnuts are not degradable....wtf???

WTF? That's bizarre.

[stevej37]

^^^ The waste disposal service will take glass, plastics, metal, whatever you want to place in the 65 gal cart.....but no yard wastes.
Lawn clippings, leaves, black walnuts are all forbidden.

I tried to get a reason why and was told the landfill would be filled if everyone did that.
Stupid answer...nothing I can do about it.

[Crowbob]

What’s so stupid about it?

Organic matter composts. Why stuff landfills with it?

[stevej37]

^^^
I pay a monthly bill for a 65 gal cart.
I can't send anymore than that each week. Why does it matter to them if it's walnuts or garbage??

[porsche tech]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

What’s so stupid about it?

Organic matter composts. Why stuff landfills with it?

It matters if you don’t want it composting in your yard. Our POA has a landscape debris dump and the local recycle center has dumpsters for landscape debris too.

[stevej37]

^^^ I wish our township had something like that. No place to go with lawn clippings or debris.

I once tried bringing a trailer load of fall leaves to a dump site. A guy there turned me around and said it was only for the city residents.

[bmcuscgr94]

We use one of these to pickup our walnuts. But, we've got about 1,000 trees



And put them in carts to take to the plant for processing.

[stevej37]

^^^
I have two trees....but they are taller..lol

Does that machine shake the trees or just pick them up from the ground?

[bmcuscgr94]

We shake with this:

[stevej37]

Your trees must be trimmed to be more manageable for harvesting? Black walnuts?
One of my two trees is an English Walnut...slightly larger nuts.

[bmcuscgr94]

Yes. We do a good pruning every other year.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by stevej37

Yes..they are about the size of a small tennis ball. Under the green outer skin is a layer of black meat/pulp....below that is the nut (which is golf ball size)

The nut is very strong..takes a squirrel or a nut cracker to break it.

Do you have a photo of one of these? I can't picture them...just the small ones I've seen all over the ground in the Midwest. Walnut is beautiful wood for furniture, that I know.

EDIT: Sorry, I somehow missed all of this page.

[speeder]

Is there any good use for them? Seems like they could fill holes somewhere?

EDIT: Referring to Steve's pile, not the commercial grow in CA.

[stevej37]

^^^ I have seen an Amish farm, about 40 miles from me, that takes bagged or pick-up loads of black walnuts for a token fee.
They have a small processor run by a gas engine and then they dry them and use them for their community.

On years when my tree drops 20 or more wheelbarrows....it ends up being a lot of work in a small window of time. So they end up on my nut-pile. Within a couple weeks, the meat starts rotting and they are a slimy mess.

[stevej37]

[QUOTE=speeder;11821469]Do you have a photo of one of these?



I used a tree branch lopper to split a couple of them a minute ago. I had to get it just right or it wanted to just slide over the pit instead of slicing it.

You can see the black greasy paste just under the outer skin. Then the nut shell with the tender meat inside that.

[bmcuscgr94]

Photos look like you've got walnut husk fly. Fly lays eggs in husk and maggots make it look like that. We have big problems with it and spray several times a season

[stevej37]

^^^ If that leads to less walnuts...I'm good with it. (what damage do they do?)

The walnuts pictured are from my small English Walnut tree.
The huge Black Walnut tree has none this year.

[stevej37]

Originally Posted by bmcuscgr94

Photos look like you've got walnut husk fly. Fly lays eggs in husk and maggots make it look like that. We have big problems with it and spray several times a season

One other question....in post #1, I mentioned about having 'no walnuts' every 5th or 6th year (maybe sometimes longer).
Do you experience that with your large amount of trees? And if so...does it apply to all of them at the same time?

[bmcuscgr94]

Originally Posted by stevej37

One other question....in post #1, I mentioned about having 'no walnuts' every 5th or 6th year (maybe sometimes longer).
Do you experience that with your large amount of trees? And if so...does it apply to all of them at the same time?

Yield varies year to year for so many reasons. Ours seems to be less every third or forth year.

Weather has bigger impact. Hot weather impacts quality and yield as does an early freeze. No rain really hurts. We're on district water and it costs a lot to irrate.

Price has dropped over a dollar a pound in the last 10 years. Family does all the work so no labor costs.

Trees getting old and have crown gall which is slowly killing them. We are replacing with Christmas trees.

[stevej37]

^^^ Ok..thanks. Last year was a drought year here, plus the utility crew came through and trimmed a lot of branches on one side last fall. That might have affected the nuts also.