Do any of you have black walnut trees? Do they look SICK to you this year? Ours are almost BARE with only a handful of nuts. I was wondering if this is happening everywhere, OR - if my DH got crazy again with his RoundUp!!!!$#@!

They are behind our house and they are a booger! You have to clean up the yard everyweek before mowing. This is the time of year they start getting the yellowish on the leaves, end of growing season. NO, these three looked 'healthy' all year long (growing season that is).
They make a mess and give me indigestion, so to me they are useless except to feed the varmits.

Blessings,
Ruth

No black walnut trees here but if you ever have an over abundance and want to sell...... My personal favorite is black walnut taffy but most people haven't even heard of it. Is this an Illinois only thing? I've searched in candy stores everywhere we go and never can find any.

We have black walnut trees and it is a beautiful woodworking grade lumber! I hate the mess the nuts make but what they give is worth it!
Hugs
April

We have several, one is in the backyard near the pool, what a mess. Always raking and cleaning leaves out of the pool. Hubby said it has to go, so I believe we will have it removed this fall.........Michele

Nancy - we have one tree on our place and it lost its leaves during our horrible HOT weather this summer. Has a decent amount of nuts. BUT, I know that I have read something recently (where?) that says that there is some disease in black walnut trees.

HTH

I understand that the wood from the trees is worth alot to woodworkers...........Michele

I love walnuts, unfortunately I do not have any Walnuts trees. But if they make a mess maybe that a good thing :wink:

http://www.sweetpalace.com/black-walnut-taffy-p-52.html

You can probably buy black walnuts online too and make your own with the following recipe:
http://www.grouprecipes.com/62534/bl...nut-taffy.html

My Dads farm has Black Walnut trees everywhere. This year they are not looking too bad, but on dry years the leaves turn early and the walnuts aren't very big.

My dads tip to remove the black hulls from the walnuts is to spread them by the mail box and let the mailmans tires remove the hulls.

My Dad now has a whole orchard of walnut trees complments of us kids. We were told to "get rid" of the walnuts in the yard, so we got out the racket ball rackets and hit them all into the cow paster. He still complains about that. :oops:

We have several and its looks like its going to be a good year for the walnuts.

Ours always are the first trees to loose their leaves (in August) so I don't think there is anything wrong with them here. However, I've been hearing on the news that there is some kind of bug or disease that "they" are trying to keep out of Missouri as Missouri receives a lot of income from the walnuts.

Nancy, we have a beautiful one in our yard but it looks awful right now, sounds like yours. Several of my trees look just as bad. This summer did a number on everything!!

Yes I believe that is true. I love my tree- it's got such a lovely straight trunk and is really tall. I love trees!! Hard to cut any even though sometimes it's necessary.

We have trees out here that the leaves started changing colors and dropping a month ago. The master gardener said it was due to an exceptionally hot early summer, and a very dry end of summer...
You could call the master gardener in your area to find out if other's are having this problem too. Our's are found through the county extension offices :D:D:D

Our walnut tree looks fine, we haven't started getting nuts yet.
But...a few of our oak trees don't look very good. The leaves didn't get very big this year. I'm hoping it has to do with the weather. We planted lots of trees 20+ years ago when we moved into the country. Now instead of mowing in the sun, we mow less and more of it is shaded. The house is much cooler in the summers too, which means smaller electric bills. yeah!!!

I wish I had black walnut trees. I love them.

I have a few AROUND my property but there is not a tree one ON my property and I have a pretty big lot.

I do remember my sister and I picking black walnuts up off the ground at my grandfathers house. We would take them behind his house where he had a couple concrete slabs and we would hammer the hull off the nut and then crack the nut and eat and eat black fingers and all. lol Oh the days!

Divinity with black walnuts my favorite at Christmastime.

We have a few, the leaves are falling because of the extrem heat, the trees will loose leaves to conserve water. We are getting nuts & they are falling. Last year we didn't get too many. I use them for baking and we feed the squirrles during the winter with them, my husband cracks them for in the feeders. They came be messy if they are close to the house. We also have 3 very large oak trees that are raining down acorns, we gather them for the deer during the winter also, they love them when sprouting.

I have one in the backyard. It looks really good this year but some of the leaves are starting to fall already. I never have a problem with walnuts- squirrels carry off every one long before they fall off the trees. I quess we have alot of fat squirrels in my neighborhood!

In Years Past

When I was a kid, we had a black walnut tree. My DM would make fudge with black walnuts....what a treat....the only catch was we had to hull and clean the nuts....It was well worth it! I haven't had any fudge like that since I was a kid but I still remember how good it was! :D :thumbup:

The one across the road from me looks fine, even though I would like to chop it down. Here they are like a noxious weed, I chop them off at the ground all summer long. The squirrels love them!!!

We have a neighbor with a beautiful black walnut tree. They are holding their leaves, no turning yellow and lots of nuts. Squirrels love them, hide them all over the neighborhood.

We had a black walnut tree once. Sometimes they don't produce nuts and my husband said "If that tree produces one nut, I'm chopping it down." It did, he did. We have a Ginkgo now. The value of the wood is great. I would save it and have something made out of the wood or have someone make something out of the wood. We have a black walnut rocker from the Amana Colonies and it is gorgeous. Also a small table.

Edie

Don't have a walnut tree, but I have a funny story about one. We were camping in west Michigan a few summers ago. We saw a tree near the campground and didn't know what it was. It had these funny green "pods" on it. Well, my DH picked one, took it back to the campground, and took it apart on the picnic table. Well, we figured out it was a walnut! His fingers were stained dark brown! And it took weeks to wear off!

We have one youngish black walnut tree... a squirrel planted it the winter we moved into our house (that will be 20 years this fall)! I pulled it up, thinking that it was a sumac, but when I saw the nut attached, I quickly patted it back into the ground and now it's a medium-sized tree.

Last year its leaves were all galled, and wrinkly-crinkly. This year there's very little problem, if any, with that. Last year there were nuts but I don't see any this year.

No, us Texans like it too. My favorite next to banana.

If black walnut taffy is an Illinois thing then maybe dark fudge with black walnuts in it is maybe a PA thing???

Something I forgot. We had a baby squirrel that had lost it's mother so we bottle fed it. When it got older I used my daddy's vise to crack open the black waknuts for him That was the fattest little round bellied squirrel you ever saw.

I remember as a kid my grandfather putting the green walnuts in burlap sacks and having us kids stomp on them, that was a pretty good way to relieve the 'back to school' jitters. Hmm, maybe I should try that now instead of .... well, that's another subject thread :lol:

We have three and I HATE them. They make such a mess - I want them all gone!!!! This year we have almost NO walnuts though....I'm wondering if they cycle or if they didn't like the hot summer. Either way, I don't mind. They are the first trees to loose their leaves though.

They seem to be the last to put on leaves in the spring and the first to lose leaves in the fall. Drought will cause an early leaf drop also.

You are so generous- if I come over will you make me a cake?? It's my favorite dessert ha ha ha :D

Ours looks sick, sick, sick.....hardly any leaves left, not many nuts either. I was told it was due to the hot/dry weather this year. Hope next year is better!!!! By the way, I love the tree!

We have 2 huge oak trees and they are messy all year round. Little twigs are always dropping, let alone leaves. No nuts from them, so their only redeeming value is shade.

We have lots around here one I can't even spread my arms aroung half way, that baby is about 125 years old...somethin else they give is being a nautral lightening rod, tree would get hit before your home would. Also can use the shells to cook up a batch of dye for fibers. great gifts and worth the mess.

Black walnuts are one of the last trees to leaf out, thus one of the first to lose them in the fall. We have a big one in our front yard and got scads of nuts last year. My hubby spent a lot of time cracking them and picking them out during his TV time. They are good in cookies, candy, desserts, etc. We love them. My favorite is hickory and this is the year for a big crop of them. Most of these trees are every-other-year producers of a big crop, with a smaller crop the other year.

I hope he was careful with the Roundup®! Here in NE Ohio everything is looking dead! no rain in weeks! Hopefully tonight! 9/2/10 It might be that it's stressed or gone into early dormancy.

Good luck! You are blessed to have blk. walnut trees... yes, a mess, and nothing will grow under them, but what a stately specimen of nature!

Reminds me of the little book "The Giving Tree". If you haven't read it yet, find it in the library! and grab a box of tissues while you're at it.
Regards,
cpfrog... another nature-benchmark.

Yes, the wood is nice. My father in law is a woodworker and we gave him a chunk of burled bigleaf maple he has been using for years in his projects! He made me a beautiful candle holder that has some of the burl in its natural pokey form.

If you remove your tree, see if there is a local woodworking group or a Rockler store nearby. They would love to take the wood off your hands. You might even make back the cost of cutting it down if you put an add to sell the chunks.

We are blessed to have several Walnut trees. I love the color/grain of the wood. Nuts aren't bad either.

Nothing will grow under the trees-- I look at this way at least you don't have problems harvesting the nuts, or have to mow there...

The outer hull-- Rubber gloves over leather gloves over rubber gloves. We save the hulls in 5 gallon buckets and fill with water. Makes a wonderful natural stain when evaporated and strained-- did I say wear rubber gloves?

Inner hulls. Burn them in the wood stove and we live on a farm with a long driveway. We dump them in the pot holes to fill them up. Just don't walk on them barefoot.

The "meat" makes the most wonderful Banana Nut Bread you ever tasted. If I can hide them long enough to get banana's home from the store...

Priceless memory.
Couple years ago my DH picked up a feed sack full and put it beside the house on the driveway. It sat there for a couple weeks and no one (me) paid any attention to it. He decided he would hull them himself. Guess what - the squirrels had emptied the bag. I come out of the house to witness him swinging the empty bag over his head yelling into the woods around us. "You lazy (blankity-blank-blank) squirrels. Why don't you go pick up your own (darn) nuts. Smart aleck that I am, I piped up and said, "Why would they want to do that when they got you doing it for them?"
If looks could kill........image of him swinging that empty bag, cursing like a banshee still makes me grin.....lol