Burning Black Walnut

[jds015]

I'll admit, I love the aroma of BW smoke almost as much as cherry. I burn a decent amount of both and get decent heat. Like others, it's not as good as oak and hickory and I have access to plenty of all of the above, but for a fire to knock the chill off and have a good smelling fire I like BW or cherry.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Pressure Treated. Now that's toxic. I've never heard of BW being toxic to work with either. Toxic usually means more than making you feel sick. Maybe an allergy symptom.

 

[gzecc]

I'll admit, I love the aroma of BW smoke almost as much as cherry. I burn a decent amount of both and get decent heat. Like others, it's not as good as oak and hickory and I have access to plenty of all of the above, but for a fire to knock the chill off and have a good smelling fire I like BW or cherry.

Definitely one of my favorite smelling woods (smoke).

 

[Schipp]

Beautiful beam!!
I burnt BW one year! Split easy with sharp edges!
I thot it burnt well, although kind’ve quick relative to Oak or Black Locust!
Interesting about BW having some toxicity to it!
I spread ashes around a lot of my trees and it always seemed to me that they didn’t do as well as I thot they should! Even years later, my Weepin Willows seemed stunted and not growing like they should! (May be my imagination)
Also interestin, I just found out, that soakin Black Walnut hulls in moonshine will get rid of parasites!
(A friend of mine just did this and noticed parasites in his poop fer two or three weeks!) ☺️

 

[Paulywalnut]

Beautiful beam!!
I burnt BW one year! Split easy with sharp edges!
I thot it burnt well, although kind’ve quick relative to Oak or Black Locust!
Interesting about BW having some toxicity to it!
I spread ashes around a lot of my trees and it always seemed to me that they didn’t do as well as I thot they should! Even years later, my Weepin Willows seemed stunted and not growing like they should! (May be my imagination)
Also interestin, I just found out, that soakin Black Walnut hulls in moonshine will get rid of parasites!
(A friend of mine just did this and noticed parasites in his poop fer two or three weeks!) ☺️

There's not a lot of plants or flowers that will grow under walnut trees

 

[Simonkenton]

Thank you for the compliment on the beam. I am real happy with the way it turned out. Took me two years and many, many hours.

Black walnut is some freaky wood. My neighbor moved up here onto the mountain and he hired me to build his log cabin. He was from New York. We worked in the winter, and we worked in the spring and summer. Takes a long time.

But, in August, Tom got sick. All kinds of really bad allergies, really anaphylactic reaction to something in the environment.
I am an old paramedic and I was checking Tom out we almost had to take him to the hospital.
He went to the doc the next day and got the tests. Tom was allergic to black walnut. Our mountain is just covered up with black walnut.

But the sap in the fall didn't bother me at all. So, I whacked all the black walnuts within 200 feet of his house, and that was about 90 of them. Some of them, 25 inch diameter and 90 feet tall. I am good with a chain saw. Of course, some of 'em were 10 feet tall.

Didn't do any good Tom was still sick. Real sick. Lasted about a month.

Well then winter came along and Tom got OK again and we finished the house. But Tom had had it, he moved out the next summer, back to Manhatten, and he sold the house. That is a damn nice house too and Tom hated to leave but he got run out by black walnut.
Tom said, "I live in Manhatten and if the GD black walnut fumes are blowing in from the east, they have to cross 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean.

God Forbid if we had used black walnut beams in Tom's house, and he had sanded that down. It probably would have killed him. I mean, b/p zero, pulse zero. Some freaky wood.

 

[Ashful]

There's not a lot of plants or flowers that will grow under walnut trees

That’s not true. There are a lot of things that will grow under black walnut. If you don’t believe me, I’ll try to get a photo of some of the hundred odd plants, shrubs, trees and flowers I have growing under BW in my own yard. There are some things that don’t like juglone, but it’s a gross exaggeration to say there’s not much that will grow under them.

 

[ct01r]

Some plants are more tolerant than others. We had tomatoes growing out of our compost pile under a walnut tree; till it got a soaking rain. Then they withered up and died. I used to plant impatience (the flower, not the spouse) under walnut trees, and the flowers thrived. Our grass is pretty nice under the trees, too; the "chemicals" from the tree wash out and kills most of the weeds. Once you get out from the drip line, you see dandelions and crabgrass. Curt

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, tomato is one of the plants known to be sensitive to BW toxicity, along with asparagus, pepper, and eggplant. I also had to avoid putting Norway Spruce under my BW, when I planted 50 of them in my back yard. But the Cypress, Hemlock, and Arborvitae all do just fine under BW. Same with my fruit trees, cherry, pear, and peach, they’re all just fine under BW.

There are a few things that don’t like BW, but the list of things that are completely tolerant of juglone is much longer than the list of things sensitive to it. I was just taking issue with the “not many things grow under”, it’s just an exaggeration of the fact that a few popular plantings are sensitive to BW.

http://www.mortonarb.org/trees-plan...re-care/plants-tolerant-black-walnut-toxicity

 

[walhondingnashua]

Black Walnut are allelopathic. Their leaves, nut shells and other debris that fall off they release a toxin into the soil. This helps them keep other plants from growing very well within the area of their roots. These toxins stay in the sawdust and the wood. I have never heard of them being toxic to animals like Buckeye or Black Cherry, but that doesn't mean its not true.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Yeah, tomato is one of the plants known to be sensitive to BW toxicity, along with asparagus, pepper, and eggplant. I also had to avoid putting Norway Spruce under my BW, when I planted 50 of them in my back yard. But the Cypress, Hemlock, and Arborvitae all do just fine under BW. Same with my fruit trees, cherry, pear, and peach, they’re all just fine under BW.

There are a few things that don’t like BW, but the list of things that are completely tolerant of juglone is much longer than the list of things sensitive to it. I was just taking issue with the “not many things grow under”, it’s just an exaggeration of the fact that a few popular plantings are sensitive to BW.

http://www.mortonarb.org/trees-plan...re-care/plants-tolerant-black-walnut-toxicity

I believe you. Rhododendrons, hydrangea, hosta, zinnias, and bee balm do horribly. I have at least 50 walnut trees.
I was generalizing, not trying to start an argument.

 

[Ashful]

I believe you. Rhododendrons, hydrangea, hosta, zinnias, and bee balm do horribly. I have at least 50 walnut trees.
I was generalizing, not trying to start an argument.

We are in the same boat. I have almost as many Walnuts as you. Fall clean-up is fun.

 

[ct01r]

Ashful, don't tell me that you use your tractor and those "rolly things" to pick up walnuts. WOW, that's a humbling experience. We only have half a dozen trees, and pick them up by hand. I can't imagine what you and Paulywalnut go through in the fall. Curt

 

[Ashful]

Ashful, don't tell me that you use your tractor and those "rolly things" to pick up walnuts. WOW, that's a humbling experience. We only have half a dozen trees, and pick them up by hand. I can't imagine what you and Paulywalnut go through in the fall. Curt

Yeah. After raking them by hand my first year here, which would take me almost one full day of each weekend during October, I had to find a better solution. Those harvesters absolutely suck, they’re are the shittiest design you could imagine, and they’re insanely expensive for what they are, but I haven’t found a better solution. I’ve been telling myself for years that I should take the picker wheels off of these assemblies and build my own more robust frames and baskets, but other projects always prevail.

I will often pick up a full pickup truck load of walnuts in a single day, several times each fall. I don’t know exactly how many mature walnut trees I have in my yard, and it seems to be a few less after each major storm (I lost my five largest in Hurricane Sandy) but there’s probably about 40 mature walnuts left.

 

[edyit]

I will often pick up a full pickup truck load of walnuts in a single day, several times each fall.

what do you do with them all? are they edible, like the walnuts you buy in the store? we don't have any near us so i'm curious

 

[Dobish]

i found a handful of black walnut trees dead and fallen in my back yard while i was wandering around yesterday. i also found a lot of other types of trees that I have no idea what they are. Very thorny, so I thought locust, but I could not find any leaves....

I also threw a few chunk of BW into the stove last night for good measure.

 

[jetsam]

That has been my experience. I will process it is i have to cut it for some reason but ibam not going to look for it. The only stuff i wont use is elm. And poplar has to really be in my way for me to cut it up.

I grew up splitting elm by hand. It is a great way to learn interesting new swear words, and to learn how many wedges you need (answer: Always one more than you actually have because the #$#$ elm won't give them back).

I now suspect that the older generations saved the elm for the kids to keep us out of their hair for extended periods of time...

The one redeeming feature of elm is that if you catch it on a -30°F day, it will suddenly make you feel like Superman instead of Wimpy.

 

[jetsam]

what do you do with them all? are they edible, like the walnuts you buy in the store? we don't have any near us so i'm curious

Yes, they're edible, but they are messy. The green flesh turns into a black goo that you could probably use for ink, and the shells are very hard.

 

[Simonkenton]

We bought 8 blueberry bushes, cost $25 each, and planted them in the garden. Along with potatoes and corn. I put a hundred hours of work into that garden and big bags of peat moss cow manure etc. Rented a roto tiller. Lots of money and work.
Everything died except the pole beans. Pole beans flourished.

Also take it from me, DO NOT park your car under a black walnut tree in autumn, the nuts will make a big dent in the metal.
Makes a real loud noise.

 

[Paulywalnut]

We are in the same boat. I have almost as many Walnuts as you. Fall clean-up is fun.

View attachment 233360

Nice tractor. I'm a John Deere guy also. I let all the walnuts fall and then deal with them. Some in the wooded area I let the squirrels deal with them

 

[Paulywalnut]

Yes, they're edible, but they are messy. The green flesh turns into a black goo that you could probably use for ink, and the shells are very hard.

View attachment 233396

i make owls from the split ones. Kids think they're funny.

 

[Paulywalnut]

Ashful, don't tell me that you use your tractor and those "rolly things" to pick up walnuts. WOW, that's a humbling experience. We only have half a dozen trees, and pick them up by hand. I can't imagine what you and Paulywalnut go through in the fall. Curt

I've tried almost every gadget. I just take my time and rake them into piles since I've retired and have plenty of time. Good exercise.

 

[Ashful]

what do you do with them all? are they edible, like the walnuts you buy in the store? we don't have any near us so i'm curious

Like jetsam said, they’re edible, but too much work and mess to make it worth the effort. So, I buy walnuts at the store, while I’m dumping mine into holes in the woods. To make eating them practical, you’d want to harvest every day or second day, before they start to rot on the ground.

And yes, jetsam, they make dye out of walnut husks. One of the oldest indelible dyes in the world, I think. Used in some furniture stains. If you ever step on a rotting walnut and then walk into your house, that stain will be on the carpet forever. DAMHIKT

 

[jetsam]

Like jetsam said, they’re edible, but too much work and mess to make it worth the effort. So, I buy walnuts at the store, while I’m dumping mine into holes in the woods. To make eating them practical, you’d want to harvest every day or second day, before they start to rot on the ground.

And yes, jetsam, they make dye out of walnut husks. One of the oldest indelible dyes in the world, I think. Used in some furniture stains. If you ever step on a rotting walnut and then walk into your house, that stain will be on the carpet forever. DAMHIKT

I believe that because I had black fingers for days at a time as a kid.

 

[Paulywalnut]

We bought 8 blueberry bushes, cost $25 each, and planted them in the garden. Along with potatoes and corn. I put a hundred hours of work into that garden and big bags of peat moss cow manure etc. Rented a roto tiller. Lots of money and work.
Everything died except the pole beans. Pole beans flourished.

Also take it from me, DO NOT park your car under a black walnut tree in autumn, the nuts will make a big dent in the metal.
Makes a real loud noise.

If I could I would cut them all down. The last to get leaves and the first to drop them. Dirty, toxic, and messy. Really many are monsters that just the branches are near impossible to cut or trim. So they stay where they are. Only two are in the general vicinity of the house.