Walnut tree clean-up
 

A beautiful 68 degree sunny fall day here in MI.
Mowing the lawn today, I usually have to rake up the black walnuts first. Most years it adds up to 10-20 wheelbarrows full by the time they all drop. (some years more)

This year, I found 4 single walnuts so far on the ground...can't see any on the trees.
It only happens every 5th or 6th year....I'm delighted.SmileWavy

Any others have walnut trees and notice the same...or is it a local weather thing?

I've got lots of them...more than the squirrels can handle and trecherious walking
I never tried raking them, just way to futile....but if you'er missing the raking your welcome to mine ; -)

^^^ Yes...it's a good way to twist an ankle by walking under the tree.

If I don't rake and pick them up...they get pushed into the sod by the lawn tractor. In a normal year, the ground is covered by the walnuts. This year is the exception...and I'm happy.

Are those the smallish green orbs?

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.

Hell nutz .... that what they are :(!

My neighbor's tree drops them on me.... but nothing like Steve is blessed with.... NOTHING.

A lot a couple, mebbe three years ago, last year just a few..... think I've had one this year. But I did cut off three overhanging limbs last spring :D

It’s called masting.

[QUOTE=KC911;11818501]Hell nutz .... that what they are :(!


If you ever want some....I have a huge pile of past years walnuts that are free for the taking. :D

Do you know if they are difficult to germinate?

Black walnuts vs. English walnuts?

They both can be cultivated. English (actually from Asia) are what we all like. Blacks not so much.

Collect walnuts after they fall. Remove the hulls and then place the nuts in a glass of water. Nuts that float are not viable and can be thrown away (or eaten). Good, viable nuts will sink to the bottom of the glass.

The viable walnuts will need to stratify (i.e., be exposed to cold and moist conditions that mimic winter conditions underground). Stratification can be done by placing the nuts in a sandwich bag fill sand and peat mix with a few spritzes of water to moisten the mix and putting the bag in the veggie drawer in your fridge for 90-120 days. Alternatively, you can plant the nuts directly in the ground in the fall for a less controlled result.
After stratification, plant the nut two inches deep and wait for it to germinate.
Care for the sapling and wait eight years to collect your first harvest of walnuts.

The pile where I place them has 'new trees' started all over. I spray the pile with Round-up ever month to keep them from growing into new trees.

These are Blacks. I do have an English Walnut tree also.
The Blacks are from a tree that is prob 8 ft in circumference.

Blacks are VERY easy to transplant. And they grow like weeds. Seriously, 1-2 feet per year is normal.

Problem is digging out the roots. Which you need to do if transplanting, obviously.

My experience is that there’s a tap root on the buggers that I swear speak Chinese.

The old timers planted ‘em all along their property lines so that about the time they (the old-timers) hang up their dungarees, their homestead is surrounded by beautiful, enormous, shade trees that make great furniture.

There are a number of homes near me that planted them many years ago with the hope of selling the mature wood for a profit.

The wood is valuable. I would gladly sell mine.

Guy comes knocking at my dad’s door right when dad’s on hard times money-wise.

Guy says I’ll buy those walnut trees in the woods on your northwestern corner.

Oh yeah? How much you gonna pay?

Ten thousand, cash tomorrow.

Sold!

Dad coulda got 50 easy, in retrospect. Plus, as a bonus, it devastated the ecology of the woods that took 30 years to get back on track.

^^^
Yes...mature trees are hard to replace.

I have mostly hard maples in my yard...one of them a birds-eye maple. Makes for a lot of fall clean-up, but I don't mind it.

I'm a sort of Flatty Apple seed. I have about 50 trees in pots now. I transplant seedlings from places that I think are not conducive to their future, nuture them in pots until I find a place to plant them. As for the black walnut I have a space on my back slope that I'm replanting where it would do very well.

^^^ Be careful where you plant the walnuts. They grow into trees that are large and drop their seeds at an alarming rate.
They are almost like willow trees....chop them down before they get ahold and grow.

Next door neighbor in VA had one between our houses. Nastiest tree I’ve ever seen. Always something falling out of it ALL YEAR LONG…continually staining my patio. When neighbor was getting ready to move, I offered to pay if he’d let me have it cut down before he left. He claimed he could get big money for it so he had it cut down (had to have a crane truck). It laid around for a while and I’m not sure if he ever found someone to buy it or paid someone to haul it away. I was just happy to have it gone.

They are usually the last trees to leaf-out in the spring...and the first trees to lose them in the fall.
The meat under the outer skin is a mess if they don't get picked up soon.

I'm pretty sure they are related to pecans because they also send a root to visit cousins in China.

On a vaguely related note, here's a way to determine what is the "antipode" (spot on the opposite side of the earth) for your location.
https://www.antipodesmap.com/
Mine is in the Indian ocean ~1700 miles east of Mauritius. I checked Beijing and it's antipode is in Argentina. It makes sense that if we are in the northern hemisphere that the "opposite" side of the world will be in the southern hemisphere. So all of this time, we've been lied to about digging to China. I for one am very disappointed in our elders that have been lying to us for so many years!
When you need money, that kind of infusion would be next to impossible to refuse. Wow, yeah, I can imagine it taking a long time for a forest to recover from a huge loss of trees.

I know the wood is valuable, but are the raw trees that valuable? Because the raw trees have to be milled, then dried before they are useful which takes a bunch of work and time.
I'm sure your fall is beautiful. Even when there are maples down here, we usually don't get the color that you do. We had one in our front yard in our old home. It would be green, then a cold snap would hit and the leaves would go from green, to yellow to brown and fall in 18-36 hours. I assume the lack of a long cooling period is why we didn't get much color.
I've heard that a lot of mills won't take trees that come out of residential lawns. The reason is that it's common to find nails, screws, etc... inside the trees. And having their saw blades hit metal is bad/expensive.
Same thing here with pecans. I assume because they put so much energy into nut production so they have a longer "resting" period.

They're dropping in my area. Rolled the 911 to my rugby club's match Saturday. Found a spot to park away from possible damage by errant kicks. Then I saw them on the ground. Quick move to a spot under a pine. Several dropped as I was exiting and locking the car. A look up revealed LOTS ready to fall in the stiff breeze.
As I was leaving, there were numerous vehicles parked in the area I avoided. Heard numerous thunks as the nuts dropped and hit vehicles. Sure to be some dents in that group.
Took 2 hickory hits at Road America 3 years ago. $250.00 to the PDR guy. Hence, my caution.
Upside is that I grabbed several nuts Saturday and gave them to my squirrels. They seemed happy.

“I've heard that a lot of mills won't take trees that come out of residential lawns. The reason is that it's common to find nails, screws, etc... inside the trees. And having their saw blades hit metal is bad/expensive”

I heard the same thing and I was going to mention that but I would think that by now they would have a way to X-ray them or something before cutting. That was 20 years ago or something but I still remember what an aggravating mess it was!

I'm in some online wood working groups, and I've heard it repeated recently when folks ask "I've got to cut down a tree" or "I was told that I could have a tree" "...can I get it milled?"

I've got some oak and pecan trees in my yard, and a bunch of them have metal in them. One has what's left of a basketball hoop embedded in it. One has a scar where I think metal cable was wrapped around it and the tree has grown over it, and several have screw eyes deeply embedded. I've even got a young live oak that has grown around the 6' metal stake that was original there to hold it up when it was newly planted.

About 10 years back, I was out raking the walnuts up when a lady pulled in the drive.
She asked if she could come back with her husband and pick them all up and take them home.

I asked why? She said they have a gravel driveway and they dump them on it and drive on them all winter. In the spring, the meat is all gone leaving just the nut. They pick up the nuts and crack them open to eat. :rolleyes:

They picked up about 10 wheelbarrows worth....they never came back in the following years.

We have one on our property. I hate that p.o.s. Tree. Brittle branches, nuts everywhere, attracts squirrels, chipmunks. I wanted to cut it down but my wife is somewhat of a tree hugger, can’t do that until it dies she says. This year thankfully no nuts. Other times, hundreds of them
A real pain to pick up and dispose of them. Don’t park your car under it or you find a bunch of small dents on the roof and hood. Ask me how I know. I really dislike this tree. I’ll probably be dead and gone before this black walnut tree gives up the ghost!

LOL! It sounds like someone had a "genius" but untested/unproven idea, and they found that it was a bad idea.

Neighbours have these and I hate them! Well I hate that the squirrels bring them on to my property. Then they take the outer coating off and it stains the spot. Stains everywhere. Dock, decks, walkways, driveway etc. Then they "squirrel" them away everywhere. They like to put them in corners, bbq, any stupid place. Worst is when I find them in the engine bay or suspension of the cars.
I do chuckle when I hear them hit the car of the renters next door that refuse to be evicted.

LOL. At least it's not all bad.

My walnut tree is only about 15 ft from the edge of the blacktop road. Naturally, when there is a normal crop of nuts, lots of them fall on the road.

Its funny to hear when cars hit them. Especially an indirect hit. Its like squeezing a cherry and the pit flying out.
When it happens, it usually hits the opposite tire and sounds like a bullet ricochet.:)

Nice, you've got a sound effects maker for Looney Tunes! LOL!

Well OK, no Black Walnut for me!

They might be good to eat, but you'd have to fight the squirrels for them.

The small red squirrels love them.
Everyday I find nut-shell slivers on my deck where they gnaw at the nut to get to the inner good part.

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.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1665577532.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1665577555.jpg

Thats a lot of tree.

^^^ Squirrel heaven.

Oh shiet. What a mess that is.

^^^ 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???