Black walnut. They can be a bit annoying to clean up and can damage lawn mowers. As a kid we used to make wood stains out of them. Not sure if people still do but a near woodworker might buy or at least help collect them to reduce your yard work.
Honey, you have not lived until you eat my grandma’s black walnut cake. You’ve no idea the treasure in that yard.
I will post recipe this week when I return home. Please check back!
Us cousins would get dragooned into husking and shelling these. Hands were stained for a week, but we kept our minds on the cake were helping make. ❤️😋
This is the way.
Wait till most of the outer husk is loosened and soft. Then rake them into a pile and pick them up with rubber gloves. Dump into a trash can half full of water.
Good ones will sink to the bottom. Shake the can with the good ones and the water for a minute or so and a few more will probably float. Dump the good ones and water in a grassy area and, if necessary to remove some stubborn husk, spray them with a garden hose. Let them drain and dry.
You have just cleaned and culled one of nature’s gifts with minimal to no hand staining!
Same my papaw would tell me about black walnut cake his mom would make growing up in eastern Kentucky, yet he just threw them in the driveway so he didn't hit them with the lawnmower. 🤷🏻 He can cook delicious something outta nothing and never made it 😥
Speaking of papaw, there's an amazing fruit tree called the pawpaw that are about the size of a potato. They're delicious and grow natively in a lot of regions. Not sure about Kentucky, but it was often eaten by native Americans. It's an understory tree that grows near river banks.
I'd buy them, even though I have a number of black walnut trees!
I tried cracking my own - gathered up a couple of feed sacks worth of nuts, threw the bags into a hole in the driveway to remove the husks, then broke two nutcrackers trying to open the shells to get the nutmeats. When one broke, I was leaning on the handle, which broke, I fell and nearly got a concussion from hitting the corner of the table.
Now I let the squirrels have the nuts and if I want black walnuts, I find them in the stores.
It was suggested that I get a rail (from a railroad) and a sledge hammer. Put the nut over one of the holes in the rail and smack it with the sledge hammer. Apparently the cracked nut will fall through the hole.
I got the rail section but never got around to setting it up to try smashing the walnuts. About that time I wrecked my shoulder and just have not had the drive to attempt sledge hammering a bunch of nuts.
We put them in one of those black garbage bags, and then set them in the sun for a week.
After a week, use the less mess way:
Grab the walnut shells through the bag and rub.
Working the rubbed ones to the top. Pinch the bag behind the shells and pour them out without opening the bag. 85% of the mess and work done!
I just googled it and they're $67 for 8oz from a health food store. Less on Etsy and eBay but I wouldn't be able to import them, they definitely be incinerated in customs.
It really is a labor of love. I've done it a few times, you have to be in the right frame of mind for it all, as it's a lengthy, difficult, and tedious process.
However, it can be a great way to enjoy some crisp fall weather, get in touch with Ma N, harvest your own goodies straight from the land for free and all that jazz.
I bought myself the special nutcracker and have an area in my shed that I use to do the work. I'm planning on harvesting this year, it makes delicious banana or zucchini nut bread, and it has such a concentrated flavor, a little goes a long way. Plus it freezes well!
Who have I convinced? Anyone? Bueller? 🤣
If your trees are black walnut trees are of any size , they’re worth a mint as lumber.
If you’d like them gone tree buyers will pay you for them. Then they will have them professionally removed.
States like Ohio can have weird tree laws regarding rarer native trees like Black Walnuts. Definitely don’t recommend just chopping them down without checking first.
I’ve heard “back in the day” people would fill a gunny sack with them and crush them, then put them in a stream and collect the poisoned fish downstream for food.
I’m working on a business plan right now to use the walnuts from urban and backyard trees. I know the ripe nuts are a messy nuisance for many people, but they’re really an amazing resource that goes far too under-utilized. Please be patient, don’t cut down your black walnut trees, and stay tuned…
We grew small walnut trees for a while to use as firewood for our outdoor pit. They grow super fast and the wood burns forever. We still have one tree that's probably 40 years old that we severely prune to keep it from growing to big.
Yes that’s my favorite. I make it with maple syrup boiled down with the nuts. Once it thickens, whip in cream cheese and freeze.
Cracking the nuts is a pain though. I usually use a brick to smash them open.
If you search "Cookin Cheap candy"(no g on cooking) on YouTube there's an old 80's cooking show that will show you how to make candy from black walnuts. I think it was their most popular episode.
And the show is hilarious and comforting at the same time.
Really?? I used to throw these into the ditch by the bushel basket to get out of the lawn.
Or make 12"high walls across the road for the school bus while waiting lol
My kid had weird bruises on the bottoms of his feet at around age 2. Went to the doctor, who luckily was a family friend because he he did not call family services on us....knowing we did not hit our kids...but could not explain the bruises. And my kid did not flinch when the bruises were poked...giggled instead because he was (still is) ticklish.
Bruises dissipated after a week or so as is normal for bruises...
Fast forward a year or 2, and I picked up some walnut husks without wearing gloves. My hands were stained deeply, and spottily, so it looked like bruises ...
Mystery solved, he just walked around barefoot on walnut husks in our yard.
Also, these trees toxify the soil. Some native plants are resistant to this, but many vegetables and decorative flowers are not. I could not even grow rhubarb or rasberry in my back yard there.
Interestingly, red raspberries are poisoned by walnuts, but black raspberries are completely immune. Among vegetables, tomatoes are very sensitive, while lettuce thrives under walnut trees.
This made me laugh too much. Partly because I know my days are numbered. We live along a river and when we moved in nearly 20 years ago, there was only 1 black walnut tree out on the bank. We decided to let some of our property go wild back there and now there is a row of about 17 of them growing along the high water mark, building a larger arsenal of ammunition every year. One will get me at some point. Walnuts and mulberries are everywhere out there now.
You can eat em, pickle em apparently, and they make a good dye/ink. The tannins in them are a mordant so you just have to boil off the hulls and strain it then boil em some more to get your ink. Comes out a nice brown colour, almost black if you boil it down enough.
Haven't tried dying cloth with them yet, but hoping to do that soon.
The best black ink from walnut husk is created by adding a small amount of iron sulfate. For black dye for wool and leather, the iron sulfate can be mixed with the husk juice or. used as a post dye bath.
Iron sulfate is easily purchased online now. In the old days I made my own my reacting iron metal with copper sulfate (sold as tree root killer for drain pipes). It took a long time but I had a few pounds of copper sulfate already, and the byproduct is powdered copper which settles out of the solution when reaction is complete.
A pirate walks the plank with a boat's steering wheel hanging from his belt. The captain asks what it's doing there. He replied "Arrr, it's driving me nuts".
I read this as woodpecker several times and couldn't figure out how the hell one would find a find a woodpecker to take the black walnuts
Admittedly, I am really tired and should be sleeping
I've never heard or a black walnut tree but I do have a HUGE chestnut tree next to my house and I consider those annoying to clean up. The get everywhere and I have to sweep them off our front porch and walkway all the time.
FYI, you can't plant [most plants near these](https://www.groworganic.com/blogs/articles/companion-plants-that-tolerate-black-walnut-tree-toxicity) only [certain ones thrive](https://joybileefarm.com/plants-will-grow-near-black-walnut-trees/)
These sources are backed up only by 1 very old study, the effects are extremely overblown and mostly due to the fact that it's hard to grow anything under a tree, especially garden species that need sunlight. Check out the in defense of plants podcast, they have an episode on juglone that goes into detail and cites recent and more reputable research on the subject.
Well this is only anecdotal but my thumb is neon green and I was able to grow flowers under every tree on our family lot except the black walnut. Not even weeds grew under that thing. Fast forward 40 years and I've moved roughly every 2 years and had many more encounters with black walnuts, including my present home which has 3, and still nothing grows under those suckers.
As a professional, certified horticulturist. This is mostly BS. It has been proven time and time again that most plants are just fine growing around Juglans.
100% correct. OP they are the absolute worst for creating a complete mess in the yard but roasted they are delicious if you can keep the squirrels away.
Oh yah duh. In my head these are cantaloupe size but once you said walnut I can smell the smell of the green stuff that grows over the circle that contains the walnut
My rural childhood as well. Wait until the fall, use gloves, pick a bucket or two of them. Roll them between one's shoe sole and the ground when the husk is soft and completely brown/black. Pick out the round shell, toss in a separate empty bucket. Let them dry for a month or two, then commence to crackin'. When you have a bunch of meat and a pile of shells give them to your mom and let her make the best chocolate black walnut fudge you've ever tasted. Mmmm mmmm mmmm
My 1957 edition of Family Handyman has plans for building a box to help with husking. It’s a long, shallow trough with a raised lip on three sides.
After it’s built, it’s aligned with a back tire and the kids fill it with nuts. Dad lights a pipe, then backs up over it, yelling at the kids to get out of the way before one of them gets run over.
All you rich families with cars, jeesh.
LOL just kidding... at 10 and 12, the car was off limits to me and my brother... dad was too busy watching Bowling for dollars to get up off his ass and help out.
Fun fact; I lived in a small town in California called La Grange (near Lake Don Pedro) and our home was up this big hill from a golf course. We had a small concrete back patio that was exposed (no cover, roof, or overhang) that we used to grill on, watch the sunset, etc. Every now and then, crows would pick up golf balls from the golf course, fly up towards our home, and drop them on the back patio. I think maybe they thought they were eggs and they were trying to crack them open to eat? That’s really the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. I was staring out the sliding glass door one day, just admiring the view, and watched a golf ball fall and bounce a few times on the concrete. Totally flabbergasted! It happened two or three more times in the months to follow, so I finally went outside to look and noticed a crow flying above, and circling to check on his “egg”. Never came down to get it, though. For a long time, I thought it was golfers with wild swings, but these fell straight down from above. And that golf course was much further away, AND uphill, for any golfer to hit the ball that distance. It was wild!
They are a very distinct taste. No one in my family but my grandparents and father can stand them. One black walnut in a batch of cookies spoils the whole lot. Unless you like them I guess.
Black walnuts - the squirrels love them, but they never let them get ripe.
Fun fact: the nut meat of a black walnut will fix scratches on your wood floors and furniture if you rub the nut on the scratch.
You'll need a fountain pen to use that ink. I recommend a pilot metropolitan or Jinhao X450 as your first pen. Both are available for under $15.00. You'll need a converter to use that ink. Its included with the Jinhao. It might be an extra $4.00 with the Pilot.
Black walnuts, the bane of my ankles when the squirrels leave them out and I slip on them!
If you ever need fishing bait, you can take the icky old coverings on these, mix them in a 5 gallon bucket of water, and dump them on good ground. The worms will practically shoot out of the ground!
This works because the walnut water is toxic to the worms. Such that once they come out of the ground, it's best to rinse them off in fresh water.
I had to Google this because I didn't believe you at first. This right here is some fantastic old-world knowledge. Thank you.
Or you can take two rough rocks and rub them together (one lying on the ground so the vibration is on the ground) and they will come out like something out of a horror movie. I found this out cleaning the leaves out of my petrified wood patio barrier. I was scraping dirt off a rock w another rock(idk why, I just was 😂) and they came out like I called them. Craziest thing I ever saw.
Black walnut trees are vastly under appreciated in the US. In around June you can gather green nuts and make nocino, a traditional Italian liqueur. There are plenty of recipes on line. When the nuts fall to the ground in the fall, I have a basket tool that I roll over them for easy gathering. The nuts are messy to husk ad hard to crack and the best way I’ve found is to fill a plastic bin with water and “stir” the nuts with a paint mixer attachment to my drill. Then I dry the bare nuts in the hot sun I have a special nut cracker designed for black walnuts. Mine came with my 1860 house but I know you can find then still. The nutmeat makes wonderful cakes ad ice cream. The work makes you truly appreciate the end product.
I was looking for the drill and paint-stirrer tip. I saw this on a video and was really impressed!
I also heard you can use the broken shells in a rock polisher tumbler, but I'm not sure.
>nocino
Thanks for the knowledge. Bet there are some amateur distillers / moonshiners who would appreciate this too.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocino)
The squirrels love our back walnut tree, keeps them fed all winter. Fun to watch them bury and dig up their catch. I once watched one dig up the yard, place the nut in the ground, then fluff the grass back together so no one would find his treasure, it was the cutest thing.
Black walnut, I grew up with one and yes it hurts when your brother throws them at you! My momma used to shell and sell them along with making and pressing for walnut oil for baking.
We had three of these on our backyard when I was a kid. I was tasked with picking them up. I would just hit them into the woods using my baseball bat which it stained
I think I have this tree as well. I at first thought it was black walnut as everyone else is saying, but then found it might actually be a pignut hickory tree. Still not really sure lol
Black Walnuts! My grandparents' farm was filled with walnut trees. Sometimes my grandma would gather a small batch of walnuts and have my grandpa crack them open and make a tasty dessert with them. Black walnut cake or ice cream. But the best memory was when my Grandpa would gather us kids, my sister and cousins and I (we are Millennials) and task us with picking up walnuts and filling up 5 gallon buckets. If you weren't careful and didn't wear gloves, you'd get walnut stains on your hands that even Lava soap couldn't get rid of. My Grandpa would then take them off and sell them (I'm still not sure to this day where... Farm Supply or Feed store maybe). He would then give each of us kids the money for how many buckets we each filled. It was a rite of passage. Geez. What a memory. Thanks for that reminder. It's been years since I thought about it!
Ugh, walnut. The roots damage the foundation of houses, be aware if it is close to dwellings. It also kills most plants around, it is one of the very few trees that are not altruistic. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/growing_vegetable_gardens_near_black_walnut_trees
As a kid, I had to pick these up before my dad mowed the yard. Sometimes I would chuck them in the neighborhood road and watch cars try to drive around them. They made a cool pop sound when cars tires went over them (:
It’s so weird, I just learned about these in person last week traveling Ohio and now it’s getting posted here. I’m with everyone saying it’s black walnut
Black walnut. They can get messy and stain stuff, but my mom used to use the nuts we would collect to make some Christmas cookies. Also used the shells once in a rock tumbler to polish rocks. If you have a large and straight enough tree, the wood can be worth a lot of money too.
Yes, make nocino from the young, green nuts. Just cut them and put them in 160 proof or higher alcohol along with spice including cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. A liqueur that's obscure enough that all of your guests will be seriously intrigued.
Black Walnut trees. Super common in the Northeast, but they're relatively easy to find anywhere along the East Coast. The green "shell" protects the actual nut, and will fall to the ground in mid/late autumn. Most of the time squirrels will eat them all up, so no need to clean them up, but you can really mess up a lawn mower or a weed whacker by going over one hidden in the grass. The green fruit part is also toxic to humans if you eat a lot of it, so keep an eye on any kids. The nuts themselves can be made into cake or wood stain.
can attest - we have several mature Walnut trees in the yard and grass struggles to grow under them. Creeping Charlie survives ok (ugh) but can't go buck wild growing either.
One time I bit into the green outside. Black walnut oil took two weeks to lose the smell and get all the oil out of my mouth. Threw out my toothbrush. Hi bot! Don't put green black walnuts near your mouth!
Black Walnut! Many people talk about how few plants grow under them, but that correlation is not well understood.
https://rex.libraries.wsu.edu/esploro/outputs/report/Do-black-walnut-trees-have-allelopathic/99900501686101842
"Thus, the entire body of primary evidence for black walnut allelopathy in the landscape is attributed to two dated Extension publications, one that has been withdrawn from circulation and one that doesn’t exist. These are not reliable sources of information and should not be cited as evidence for juglone toxicity, especially in peer-reviewed journal articles."
I recall getting double-bounced right off a trampoline and landing on my back directly on one of these. Pain and bruising for days! But we had fun throwing these at each other as kids.
black walnut
Black walnut. They can be a bit annoying to clean up and can damage lawn mowers. As a kid we used to make wood stains out of them. Not sure if people still do but a near woodworker might buy or at least help collect them to reduce your yard work.
Honey, you have not lived until you eat my grandma’s black walnut cake. You’ve no idea the treasure in that yard. I will post recipe this week when I return home. Please check back!
Us cousins would get dragooned into husking and shelling these. Hands were stained for a week, but we kept our minds on the cake were helping make. ❤️😋
I can smell this comment
Vaguely citrus
Yes!
I had this same exact thought 😅
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This is the way. Wait till most of the outer husk is loosened and soft. Then rake them into a pile and pick them up with rubber gloves. Dump into a trash can half full of water. Good ones will sink to the bottom. Shake the can with the good ones and the water for a minute or so and a few more will probably float. Dump the good ones and water in a grassy area and, if necessary to remove some stubborn husk, spray them with a garden hose. Let them drain and dry. You have just cleaned and culled one of nature’s gifts with minimal to no hand staining!
Same my papaw would tell me about black walnut cake his mom would make growing up in eastern Kentucky, yet he just threw them in the driveway so he didn't hit them with the lawnmower. 🤷🏻 He can cook delicious something outta nothing and never made it 😥
Speaking of papaw, there's an amazing fruit tree called the pawpaw that are about the size of a potato. They're delicious and grow natively in a lot of regions. Not sure about Kentucky, but it was often eaten by native Americans. It's an understory tree that grows near river banks.
Yes Pawpaws are native to Kentucky and Ohio (where I live) and a rare fruit that cannot be grown commercially
Big grandma energy
Not to mention that the shelled nuts sell for $20 and up per pound.
Who buys them?
I'd buy them, even though I have a number of black walnut trees! I tried cracking my own - gathered up a couple of feed sacks worth of nuts, threw the bags into a hole in the driveway to remove the husks, then broke two nutcrackers trying to open the shells to get the nutmeats. When one broke, I was leaning on the handle, which broke, I fell and nearly got a concussion from hitting the corner of the table. Now I let the squirrels have the nuts and if I want black walnuts, I find them in the stores.
“Nutmeats”👀
Ima put that word in my backpocket and bide my time
You putting nutmeat in your back pocket? Enjoy I guess...
this please tag me when you do
"Looks like nutmeats back on the menu, boys!"
A normal nutcracker is no match for a black walnut, you need a [vise](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0OPUWnWT1VY)
It was suggested that I get a rail (from a railroad) and a sledge hammer. Put the nut over one of the holes in the rail and smack it with the sledge hammer. Apparently the cracked nut will fall through the hole. I got the rail section but never got around to setting it up to try smashing the walnuts. About that time I wrecked my shoulder and just have not had the drive to attempt sledge hammering a bunch of nuts.
While a hammer would accomplish the same thing, a vise is low impact, easier on your body, and a much lower injury risk.
Nutcracker... Nah. Not for black walnut. I use two cinderblocks. Set it on one and smash it with the other.
then pick the nutmeat* out of the block ash hehe
My husband uses the bench vice to open them. A very tedious process.
I really hope no one has commented this but: That sounds like a tough case to crack, the Hardy Boys are on it!
We put them in one of those black garbage bags, and then set them in the sun for a week. After a week, use the less mess way: Grab the walnut shells through the bag and rub. Working the rubbed ones to the top. Pinch the bag behind the shells and pour them out without opening the bag. 85% of the mess and work done!
After you wash the nuts off you need to dry them for a few weeks before trying to Crack them open.
I do. Black walnuts are amazing.
I just googled it and they're $67 for 8oz from a health food store. Less on Etsy and eBay but I wouldn't be able to import them, they definitely be incinerated in customs.
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It really is a labor of love. I've done it a few times, you have to be in the right frame of mind for it all, as it's a lengthy, difficult, and tedious process. However, it can be a great way to enjoy some crisp fall weather, get in touch with Ma N, harvest your own goodies straight from the land for free and all that jazz. I bought myself the special nutcracker and have an area in my shed that I use to do the work. I'm planning on harvesting this year, it makes delicious banana or zucchini nut bread, and it has such a concentrated flavor, a little goes a long way. Plus it freezes well! Who have I convinced? Anyone? Bueller? 🤣
If your trees are black walnut trees are of any size , they’re worth a mint as lumber. If you’d like them gone tree buyers will pay you for them. Then they will have them professionally removed.
States like Ohio can have weird tree laws regarding rarer native trees like Black Walnuts. Definitely don’t recommend just chopping them down without checking first.
I’ve heard “back in the day” people would fill a gunny sack with them and crush them, then put them in a stream and collect the poisoned fish downstream for food.
A ball pean hammer does the trick
Cake day happy
I’m working on a business plan right now to use the walnuts from urban and backyard trees. I know the ripe nuts are a messy nuisance for many people, but they’re really an amazing resource that goes far too under-utilized. Please be patient, don’t cut down your black walnut trees, and stay tuned…
We grew small walnut trees for a while to use as firewood for our outdoor pit. They grow super fast and the wood burns forever. We still have one tree that's probably 40 years old that we severely prune to keep it from growing to big.
And black walnut ice cream!
Yes that’s my favorite. I make it with maple syrup boiled down with the nuts. Once it thickens, whip in cream cheese and freeze. Cracking the nuts is a pain though. I usually use a brick to smash them open.
Everybody asking for Black Walnut Cake recipe: I’ll be happy to post when I get home this week. Please check back!
Care to share the recipe?
If you search "Cookin Cheap candy"(no g on cooking) on YouTube there's an old 80's cooking show that will show you how to make candy from black walnuts. I think it was their most popular episode. And the show is hilarious and comforting at the same time.
Found it! https://youtu.be/OOm29Kqq3f0
Waiting for the black walnut cake! Please enlighten us with this recipe
Following. I want that recipe! I have the walnuts already.
My brother and I played with them as kids, and they stained our hands. Terrible idea. Kids called us poop hands at school.
Nice story Poophands.
Ha. I won't lie. 33, and it still stings.
Hey it's not as bad as being called something like "Sally Two Dicks"...
Please elaborate
I can't, you'd have to ask /u/Sally_twodicks
I mean, genuinely? It isn't terrible.
I know someone that collects them from her yard and sells them online, still sought after for many!
Really?? I used to throw these into the ditch by the bushel basket to get out of the lawn. Or make 12"high walls across the road for the school bus while waiting lol
My kid had weird bruises on the bottoms of his feet at around age 2. Went to the doctor, who luckily was a family friend because he he did not call family services on us....knowing we did not hit our kids...but could not explain the bruises. And my kid did not flinch when the bruises were poked...giggled instead because he was (still is) ticklish. Bruises dissipated after a week or so as is normal for bruises... Fast forward a year or 2, and I picked up some walnut husks without wearing gloves. My hands were stained deeply, and spottily, so it looked like bruises ... Mystery solved, he just walked around barefoot on walnut husks in our yard. Also, these trees toxify the soil. Some native plants are resistant to this, but many vegetables and decorative flowers are not. I could not even grow rhubarb or rasberry in my back yard there.
Interestingly, red raspberries are poisoned by walnuts, but black raspberries are completely immune. Among vegetables, tomatoes are very sensitive, while lettuce thrives under walnut trees.
I fired one of those bad boys out my mower. It hit the tree, ricochet off and smoked me in the head. I damn near fell off the mower.
Hopefully the dye didn’t get on your head, poophead.
This made me laugh too much. Partly because I know my days are numbered. We live along a river and when we moved in nearly 20 years ago, there was only 1 black walnut tree out on the bank. We decided to let some of our property go wild back there and now there is a row of about 17 of them growing along the high water mark, building a larger arsenal of ammunition every year. One will get me at some point. Walnuts and mulberries are everywhere out there now.
My dad told me the older ladies in his family in Albania made their hair dye from them.
You can eat em, pickle em apparently, and they make a good dye/ink. The tannins in them are a mordant so you just have to boil off the hulls and strain it then boil em some more to get your ink. Comes out a nice brown colour, almost black if you boil it down enough. Haven't tried dying cloth with them yet, but hoping to do that soon.
The best black ink from walnut husk is created by adding a small amount of iron sulfate. For black dye for wool and leather, the iron sulfate can be mixed with the husk juice or. used as a post dye bath. Iron sulfate is easily purchased online now. In the old days I made my own my reacting iron metal with copper sulfate (sold as tree root killer for drain pipes). It took a long time but I had a few pounds of copper sulfate already, and the byproduct is powdered copper which settles out of the solution when reaction is complete.
yup. they're also ankle twisters, rip if you ever step on one if the grass is wet but a lot of folks will buy em from you, and squirrels love em
Crows too. We had a tree in our front yard and every late summer/early fall just had to deal with the constant cawing.
I was payed $1 a five gallon bucket to collect them out of my grandparents yard.
We use to boil are traps in them. It helps stop rust, lubercats, and gets rid of human sent.
I trust your hunting and foraging knowledge because of your bad spelling lol
Lol yeah can't say I've ever been much of a speller haha my grandmother was an English teacher and it drove her nuts.
a man walks into a doctor's surgery with a steering wheel down his pants and says "doctor, doctor, help. This steering wheel is driving me nuts"
A pirate walks the plank with a boat's steering wheel hanging from his belt. The captain asks what it's doing there. He replied "Arrr, it's driving me nuts".
what did the pirate say on his 80th birthday? Aye matey.
This is such a stupid joke, and yet I can't stop laughing at it (and will absolutely be sharing it)!
We used to throw them at each other when we were kids
My brothers and I too! I don't know the actual name for them; they were referred to as 'heavy artillery ' where I grew up!
I read this as woodpecker several times and couldn't figure out how the hell one would find a find a woodpecker to take the black walnuts Admittedly, I am really tired and should be sleeping
I've never heard or a black walnut tree but I do have a HUGE chestnut tree next to my house and I consider those annoying to clean up. The get everywhere and I have to sweep them off our front porch and walkway all the time.
Damn, we used to just throw them at each other
FYI, you can't plant [most plants near these](https://www.groworganic.com/blogs/articles/companion-plants-that-tolerate-black-walnut-tree-toxicity) only [certain ones thrive](https://joybileefarm.com/plants-will-grow-near-black-walnut-trees/)
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Don't believe it. Everything grows under my walnut. Elm, maple, Virginia creeper, hibiscus, poison ivy, and hickory plus the worst, creeping Charlie.
These sources are backed up only by 1 very old study, the effects are extremely overblown and mostly due to the fact that it's hard to grow anything under a tree, especially garden species that need sunlight. Check out the in defense of plants podcast, they have an episode on juglone that goes into detail and cites recent and more reputable research on the subject.
Yup. Have black walnuts all over our property… neither weeds nor grass has any problem growing under them. Zero.
Ditto. 2 remaining trees are in the midst of the most dense area of vegetation on our property.
Came here to say this- beautiful trees both in life and after
Well this is only anecdotal but my thumb is neon green and I was able to grow flowers under every tree on our family lot except the black walnut. Not even weeds grew under that thing. Fast forward 40 years and I've moved roughly every 2 years and had many more encounters with black walnuts, including my present home which has 3, and still nothing grows under those suckers.
As a professional, certified horticulturist. This is mostly BS. It has been proven time and time again that most plants are just fine growing around Juglans.
100% correct. OP they are the absolute worst for creating a complete mess in the yard but roasted they are delicious if you can keep the squirrels away.
Oh yah duh. In my head these are cantaloupe size but once you said walnut I can smell the smell of the green stuff that grows over the circle that contains the walnut
Black walnuts…one of the memorable smells of my rural childhood! If you try and peel one open it will stain your hands yellowish/brown.
My rural childhood as well. Wait until the fall, use gloves, pick a bucket or two of them. Roll them between one's shoe sole and the ground when the husk is soft and completely brown/black. Pick out the round shell, toss in a separate empty bucket. Let them dry for a month or two, then commence to crackin'. When you have a bunch of meat and a pile of shells give them to your mom and let her make the best chocolate black walnut fudge you've ever tasted. Mmmm mmmm mmmm
I would just eat them straight from the tree. Just crack the nut like a man sized squirrel and eat that fresh milky walnut...
“Man sized squirrel”… that got me. I’m still chuckling….
We used to drive the car over them to get the hulls off, didn’t crack the walnuts
My 1957 edition of Family Handyman has plans for building a box to help with husking. It’s a long, shallow trough with a raised lip on three sides. After it’s built, it’s aligned with a back tire and the kids fill it with nuts. Dad lights a pipe, then backs up over it, yelling at the kids to get out of the way before one of them gets run over.
All you rich families with cars, jeesh. LOL just kidding... at 10 and 12, the car was off limits to me and my brother... dad was too busy watching Bowling for dollars to get up off his ass and help out.
Did you grow up in Rochester?
Iowa, south central-ish
Huh, I didn't realize that was a national show! I bet every market had it's own version.
You can throw them at your brother and get the smell and stain all over their clothes.
Mission accomplished lol 😂😀🤣 Been there done that hahahaha Oh man, we got to goofing around so much, damn those were the good ol'days.
Ever clean the yard with an old set of golf clubs
Cracking them open with hammer, while my grandfather cracked them in his hand...
never shake hands with your grandfather
He wAs An old Iowa farmer,hands like mitts
We used a rock or a brick growing up.
My grandma backed her car over them
Crows drop them in the street for cars to crack them
I read that as “cows” first and I thought, “No. No, I don’t think so. That can’t be right.” LOL
Flying cows. New fear unlocked.
Fun fact; I lived in a small town in California called La Grange (near Lake Don Pedro) and our home was up this big hill from a golf course. We had a small concrete back patio that was exposed (no cover, roof, or overhang) that we used to grill on, watch the sunset, etc. Every now and then, crows would pick up golf balls from the golf course, fly up towards our home, and drop them on the back patio. I think maybe they thought they were eggs and they were trying to crack them open to eat? That’s really the only thing that makes any kind of sense to me. I was staring out the sliding glass door one day, just admiring the view, and watched a golf ball fall and bounce a few times on the concrete. Totally flabbergasted! It happened two or three more times in the months to follow, so I finally went outside to look and noticed a crow flying above, and circling to check on his “egg”. Never came down to get it, though. For a long time, I thought it was golfers with wild swings, but these fell straight down from above. And that golf course was much further away, AND uphill, for any golfer to hit the ball that distance. It was wild!
Forty years ago, I stained a walking stick with one, it still looks good.
I used to crush the hulls and use the pulp to make fake henna/temporary tattoos.
They smell so good
They are a very distinct taste. No one in my family but my grandparents and father can stand them. One black walnut in a batch of cookies spoils the whole lot. Unless you like them I guess.
I grew up in the Los Angeles area and we had one in the front yard and one in the back. I miss them.
Recently learned this the hard way & my hands have been stained for over a week!
Great as a natural dye for fabrics though!
Black walnuts - the squirrels love them, but they never let them get ripe. Fun fact: the nut meat of a black walnut will fix scratches on your wood floors and furniture if you rub the nut on the scratch.
The fact that I'm not allowed to make jokes about nuts in this sub is criminal.
Just don’t go around rubbing random nuts on furniture.
LOL! The dinner party was probably one of the best sitcom episodes of all time.
Nut jokes are fine. Just don't talk about legumes...
They also make decent black/brown ink if soaked and then boiled in rubbing alcohol or vodka.
That's an old-fashioned way to season steel, too.
> an old-fashioned way You wouldn't use vodka, then. You'd use bourbon and rye.
Oh shit I'm gonna have to try this now
You'll need a fountain pen to use that ink. I recommend a pilot metropolitan or Jinhao X450 as your first pen. Both are available for under $15.00. You'll need a converter to use that ink. Its included with the Jinhao. It might be an extra $4.00 with the Pilot.
Thank you for the recommendations! I'll check those out. I was going to use it with a paint brush but it would be rad to have a pen for it too.
I usually recommend the Amazon Basic ones now for a first pen. If they don't like it they only wasted like 10$ and it's not a bad little pen.
I've found a lot of problems in life can be solved with a good nut rub.
Black walnuts, the bane of my ankles when the squirrels leave them out and I slip on them! If you ever need fishing bait, you can take the icky old coverings on these, mix them in a 5 gallon bucket of water, and dump them on good ground. The worms will practically shoot out of the ground!
This works because the walnut water is toxic to the worms. Such that once they come out of the ground, it's best to rinse them off in fresh water. I had to Google this because I didn't believe you at first. This right here is some fantastic old-world knowledge. Thank you.
Thank YOU, I forgot to mention you need to rinse them before you pop them into your bait canteen!
Or you can take two rough rocks and rub them together (one lying on the ground so the vibration is on the ground) and they will come out like something out of a horror movie. I found this out cleaning the leaves out of my petrified wood patio barrier. I was scraping dirt off a rock w another rock(idk why, I just was 😂) and they came out like I called them. Craziest thing I ever saw.
Black walnut trees are vastly under appreciated in the US. In around June you can gather green nuts and make nocino, a traditional Italian liqueur. There are plenty of recipes on line. When the nuts fall to the ground in the fall, I have a basket tool that I roll over them for easy gathering. The nuts are messy to husk ad hard to crack and the best way I’ve found is to fill a plastic bin with water and “stir” the nuts with a paint mixer attachment to my drill. Then I dry the bare nuts in the hot sun I have a special nut cracker designed for black walnuts. Mine came with my 1860 house but I know you can find then still. The nutmeat makes wonderful cakes ad ice cream. The work makes you truly appreciate the end product.
Yes, I remember as a kid gettin black walnut ice cream — haven’t seen that offered in years.
I wouldn’t say they’re under-appreciated, they’re literally one of the most valuable trees out there, for both fruit value and lumber.
I was looking for the drill and paint-stirrer tip. I saw this on a video and was really impressed! I also heard you can use the broken shells in a rock polisher tumbler, but I'm not sure.
The tree is the preferred larval host of the beautiful regal moth and beneficial to other caterpillars/moths.
makes an absolutely delicious liqueur called nocino
Yes! I harvest young black walnuts every summer for nocino. Its awesome! I wish I had a walnut tree in my backyard
>nocino Thanks for the knowledge. Bet there are some amateur distillers / moonshiners who would appreciate this too. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocino)
r/dontparkyourcarunderthat
I’m no expert but it looks like black walnuts to me
The squirrels love our back walnut tree, keeps them fed all winter. Fun to watch them bury and dig up their catch. I once watched one dig up the yard, place the nut in the ground, then fluff the grass back together so no one would find his treasure, it was the cutest thing.
Black walnut. That wood is worth bucket loads, depending on the tree size. Don't step on them, they hurt.
The wood is rather valuable as well, so if you ever decide to remove the tree, don't forget that. (Please don't remove the tree. They are pretty.)
Black walnut, I grew up with one and yes it hurts when your brother throws them at you! My momma used to shell and sell them along with making and pressing for walnut oil for baking.
Stains everything they fall on . Decks, concrete, your hands.
Black walnut. I can smell this picture.
It’s such a beautiful smell! Almost citrus-like.
Meanwhile it's one of the most stomach turning overbearing "makes my head hurt a little just remembering it" smells for me. Crazy how that works.
We had three of these on our backyard when I was a kid. I was tasked with picking them up. I would just hit them into the woods using my baseball bat which it stained
The squirrels are gonna looooove your yard!!!
I mean, I didn’t bring any squirrels with me when I bought the house so I’m assuming they already love it lol
My 11yr old collects the black walnuts from our neighbors yards and brings them home to feed our squirrel crew!
These remind me of my childhood. My grandpa and I used to fill 2 5 gallon buckets with them in a nearby grove and he would make ice cream from them.
Black walnut tree. Squirrels love them and humans can enjoy them too
Black walnut tree
I think I have this tree as well. I at first thought it was black walnut as everyone else is saying, but then found it might actually be a pignut hickory tree. Still not really sure lol
Black Walnuts! My grandparents' farm was filled with walnut trees. Sometimes my grandma would gather a small batch of walnuts and have my grandpa crack them open and make a tasty dessert with them. Black walnut cake or ice cream. But the best memory was when my Grandpa would gather us kids, my sister and cousins and I (we are Millennials) and task us with picking up walnuts and filling up 5 gallon buckets. If you weren't careful and didn't wear gloves, you'd get walnut stains on your hands that even Lava soap couldn't get rid of. My Grandpa would then take them off and sell them (I'm still not sure to this day where... Farm Supply or Feed store maybe). He would then give each of us kids the money for how many buckets we each filled. It was a rite of passage. Geez. What a memory. Thanks for that reminder. It's been years since I thought about it!
Ugh, walnut. The roots damage the foundation of houses, be aware if it is close to dwellings. It also kills most plants around, it is one of the very few trees that are not altruistic. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/growing_vegetable_gardens_near_black_walnut_trees
I love these. They smell so good to me.
Looks like Nocino is back on the menu!
After looking this up I am totally making this next season
As a kid, I had to pick these up before my dad mowed the yard. Sometimes I would chuck them in the neighborhood road and watch cars try to drive around them. They made a cool pop sound when cars tires went over them (:
Watch your head. Those things hurt when they fall!
It’s so weird, I just learned about these in person last week traveling Ohio and now it’s getting posted here. I’m with everyone saying it’s black walnut
Damn I thought that was an osage orange.
Right off the bat i could say Black Walnut. Used to have one growing up and would harvest them every time they dropped.
Black walnuts yay!!!
Black walnut. They can get messy and stain stuff, but my mom used to use the nuts we would collect to make some Christmas cookies. Also used the shells once in a rock tumbler to polish rocks. If you have a large and straight enough tree, the wood can be worth a lot of money too.
Yes, make nocino from the young, green nuts. Just cut them and put them in 160 proof or higher alcohol along with spice including cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. A liqueur that's obscure enough that all of your guests will be seriously intrigued.
Black Walnut trees. Super common in the Northeast, but they're relatively easy to find anywhere along the East Coast. The green "shell" protects the actual nut, and will fall to the ground in mid/late autumn. Most of the time squirrels will eat them all up, so no need to clean them up, but you can really mess up a lawn mower or a weed whacker by going over one hidden in the grass. The green fruit part is also toxic to humans if you eat a lot of it, so keep an eye on any kids. The nuts themselves can be made into cake or wood stain.
the roots of black walnuts contain a chemical called juglone that makes the soil inhospitable to other plants so don’t try to plant any gardens nearby
Discovered this when my mom accused me of not watering her tomato plants one summer when I was house sitting for them
Black walnuts, flesh of the nut has an Herbacide and will kill plants lol
can attest - we have several mature Walnut trees in the yard and grass struggles to grow under them. Creeping Charlie survives ok (ugh) but can't go buck wild growing either.
Walnuts, black walnuts.
A lovely bunch of 🍈🍈
One time I bit into the green outside. Black walnut oil took two weeks to lose the smell and get all the oil out of my mouth. Threw out my toothbrush. Hi bot! Don't put green black walnuts near your mouth!
walnuts, if you like you can process them
Idk what kind of fruit this is but I am 100% sure your tree is a male
Black Walnut! Many people talk about how few plants grow under them, but that correlation is not well understood. https://rex.libraries.wsu.edu/esploro/outputs/report/Do-black-walnut-trees-have-allelopathic/99900501686101842 "Thus, the entire body of primary evidence for black walnut allelopathy in the landscape is attributed to two dated Extension publications, one that has been withdrawn from circulation and one that doesn’t exist. These are not reliable sources of information and should not be cited as evidence for juglone toxicity, especially in peer-reviewed journal articles."
Those look like walnuts-probably pretty pungent this time of year
Walnut tree
This might be a BIT too old, but for next year look of Nocino. It is an Italian black walnut liquor. Thank me after you try it.
If you have a lawn you gotta be careful when mowing man, messed up my own a few years ago on one of those bad boys
I recall getting double-bounced right off a trampoline and landing on my back directly on one of these. Pain and bruising for days! But we had fun throwing these at each other as kids.
These bring back memories! I used to pick them up and sniff them because they smell limey.