Black walnuts produce a natural herbicide from their roots that will kill other plants, it is called jugIone (or something like that). I plan to plant them away from the homestead area itself and out along the edge of the fields where they will not cause havoc.
My sister had one in her yard and the walnut "skins" stained her car, driveway, sidewalk, hands, etc. every fall.
Jim, do you harvest the walnuts?
I did harvest about a bushel one year. lately the squirrels take pretty good care of them.
they are a chore to crack.
if you plan to use a hammer, do it in a small room, like a closet or an old phone booth. pieces will fly .
you can use a bench vise, but that is slow work and the pieces still fly..
we sent for a special nut cracker that worked very good.
I think we paid $40.oo for it
we had a cross breed german shepherd a long time ago.
I would give her one of the nuts and she would lay on the floor and roll it around in her mouth until she got it just right. then she would bite down and you would think her head exploded. she managed to dig the meat out . awesome.
I had a goose make a nest among the trees. she used twigs and leaves. not one out of a dozen eggs hatched. .
i mentioned squirrels. last summer I yanked out a couple of 10 foot high trees that the squirrels planted. I did not want them growing where they were.
Annie's cousin used to plant some nuts. he covered the bed with chicken wire so the squirrels couldn't dig the nuts out. after they were about a foot tall, he transplanted them all over the place. He owned a large mobile home court, so except for those trees, it was quite baron ..
........jiminwisc.....
