My Rant about Black Walnuts and their Drupes

Have I ranted about the black walnut* missile attacks before? Most likely. Most likely I do so on a biannual basis. Specifically, during mast years.
It’s been a great year for black walnuts, Juglans nigra, and for squirrels.** It has been a tragic year for my driveway, my back porch, and for CSB’s windshield.

Yes, I know that the black walnut tree is native, and native plants are good. I also know that the wood of black walnut trees is beautiful and valuable.

My gripe is with the fruits of the tree: the drupes. ***

We have tried, really tried, to find uses for black walnuts, to justify their existence, and in particular justify their voluminous existence in front of my house. You should never, ever, on any planet, on any continent, plant a black walnut tree near your house or driveway. Because, as Richard Powers says in The Overstory, they are “Trees that bomb the ground so only their young can grow.” What he doesn’t say is that their bombs can stain the wood on your back porch, puncture of your car, cause concussions, and sound like fireworks when they hit the driveway.


The problem with the black walnut drupes is exacerbated during wet and windy weather, the autumnal storms which we are experiencing in unprecedented profusion. With the rain the black walnuts become saturated and heavier, and with the wind the branches flail about and broadcast the black walnuts. Here at Let it Bee farm they bombard the back porch where they splatter on impact and stain not only the wooden planks but the white clapboard to a height of over 8 feet. They pour down on any patch of dirt aspiring to grow anything but Juglans nigra. They fall on the driveway by the thousands; and they attack any car foolish enough to be parked within the dripline. These foolish cars end up with pockmarked roofs and hoods, and recently, a shattered windshield. When cars drive over the black walnuts on the driveway – because we can’t spend every minute of every day shoveling them up with an industrial strength snow shovel – the bursting of the drupes sounds like machine gun fire.


Why do we put up with this tree, in the bosom of our abode? Exactly how idiotic are we? Would not a normal, well-adjusted, rational person chop the tree down, stack up the wood, and plant a benign azalea there instead? I often ask myself: what would a normal, well-adjusted person do in this circumstance [take your pick: recalcitrant chickens, political crises, randy squirrels on the roof, dementia]?
I often bemoan the phenomenon in electoral politics whereby huge swaths of the voting public appear to vote against their own best interests.
Yet here we are, living under the tyranny of the Juglans nigra, every year, and especially every other or mast year, complaining bitterly about the mess and the noise and threat of concussion. We could chop the tree down. CSB’s chain saw is not big enough, but there are plenty for excellent arborists who would happily come and take down this old tree, in stages, at some cost. We could even defray the cost of having the tree taken down by selling the wood: according to the all-knowing Internet, a single tree can be worth $20,000.

But we don’t chop it down, and we will not. Because it is a tree that belongs to this continent that has already spent (possibly) one hundred years growing in that spot. I have not spent one hundred years doing anything consistently.

As for justifying the black walnut’s existence in our particular spot, I read recently in Peter Wohlleben’s wonderful The Hidden Life of Trees, that the same compound (Juglone - a natural herbicide) that prevents other plants from growing in its vicinity, is considered so unpleasant by mosquitoes that “Garden lovers are often advised to put a bench under a canopy of walnuts….where they will have the least chance of being bitten by mosquitoes.” He makes no mention of the danger of sitting on that bench in the autumn, when the drupes are hailing down. I have to admit that we are rarely afflicted by mosquitoes when dining on the back porch all summer long.


*I will make a point of referring to the black walnuts that populate my yard as black walnuts, to distinguish them from the walnuts you buy in the grocery store and put in brownies, or not, depending on your familial preferences, which are European walnuts, Juglans regia, also of the Juglandaceae family, but so much easier to open.

**Factoid: Black walnuts make up 10% of the diet of an eastern squirrel. That is true in many places, except my yard, where they make up at least 50%.


***Drupes are “ fleshy fruits with thin skin and a central stone containing the seed”
This word is so delightful, and so much fun to say aloud, that it almost reconciles me to the Assault of the Drupes. But no, it doesn’t really. Other excellent words related to drupes are: drupaceous, drupelets**** and indehiscent.

*****My favorite of the drupe set of words.

A few selected (redacted) Weekend Highlights

First off, we had a visit from Jerry H., Librarian of the Northern Nutgrowers Association and passionate advocate for nut trees. He came by with our new industrial strength nutcracker – capable of cracking the black walnuts that fall on the back porch and on the driveway, and dent the roof of any car parked beneath. It turns out that, after all these years of thinking otherwise, the black walnuts are actually edible. In order to derive an edible walnut, all you have to do is:
1. Gather the fallen black walnuts. They will be soft and mushy. They will stain your fingers and anything else they touch.
2. Step on them with shoes you don’t mind discoloring and roll them around on the driveway to remove the outer green skin and pulp, leaving the nutshell. Do not do this if you suffer from vertigo, dizziness or labyrinthitis.
3. Soak the partially cleaned nutshells in a bucket of water and scrape them clean with a wire brush. OR, if you happen to have a washing machine you have no other use for, you can put the nuts in that. Do not under any circumstances wash the walnuts in the same washing machine you will use for your clothes, as the nuts will dent the drum and stain everything else.
4. Lay out the cleaned nutshells on a screen and allow them to dry for 2 to 3 weeks in a cool dry place.
They should now be edible.
5. Bring out your industrial strength nutcracker to open them, but be careful of flying bits of nutshell that can be very sharp and could pierce your eyeball.
6. Enjoy the nuts.

I particularly liked Jerry’s jacket.

Next, I went to see CINDERELLA on Broadway with Numero Uno Granddaughter, Leda G.G.H.B. I expected every little girl in the audience to be dolled up in colorful and slightly tacky versions of Cinderella attire, and was somewhat disappointed at the preponderance of blue jeans. Though not on Numero Uno granddaughter, whose version of Cinderella Attire included: a long gown apparently from the 1970’s, a tasteful sweater with a deer (faun?) on it, a glitter headband and missing front teeth. We loved Cinderella. I appreciated that the stepsister with wanderlust and political leanings wore glasses.
Updated fairy tale was followed by a Sushi picnic on Metro North. Numero Uno granddaughter loves sushi. Not photographically documented was the miso soup spillage, which made rather a large mess but did not dampen our good spirits.

Then on Sunday, we walked out back to appreciate the 13-FOOT AFRICAN PYTHON SKIN. (I wanted CSB to lie down next to the python skin, for scale, but his dignity forbade such a ridiculous performance. My dignity would not have minded, but this was not suggested.) This was not our python skin, I regret to say, but our friend Merrill’s python skin. This python skin required the application of glycerin to soften it, and she thought our backyard would be an excellent place to accomplish this. We agreed, naturally. I did not learn if live pythons, that is pythons attached to their 13 feet of snakeskin, like to be rubbed all over with glycerin. But this snakeskin certainly gleamed after the application.

I could include in the highlights last night’s dinner chez Camilla and Aldo. But in the interests of brevity I will simply say: Antipasti by Aldo; Gnocchi a la Romana by Camilla, Rabbit stew (there must be a better word than stew) and caramelized onions by Aldo, Plum tart made with Zinfandel grapes by Camilla. Honey tasting by the bees of Montenegro, Rwanda, Southern Colorado, Bolivia, Block Island, Ontario and Hastings on Hudson.
Also of great interest was the ensuing discussion of the difference between and meaning of CHEF and COOK.

Trees, seeds, trees

If you happen to go to Fort Bragg, California you can drive on a road adopted by the MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS UNION, on your way to the only Virgin Redwood Ballroom anywhere.
Alas, I am a not a user of marijuana, medically or otherwise, but I like to think that MM patients have a union that is interested in keeping this section of the highway litter-free.


In Fort Bragg you will of course want to stay at the Weller House Inn. Unlike the usual B&B, it is a potpourri-free zone, with no overstuffed pillows or animals and lots of good books. The inn is managed by my friend Vivien, linguist, filmmaker, medieval chef and tangoista extraordinaire. While there, you can breakfast in the dining room under the benign gaze of Viv’s Danish grandfather, who at the age of 19 was made the Danish consul in Egypt. You can tango in the third floor redwood ballroom; or hear young Stephen practice his trumpet (or not); or visit the very special Ladies’ Room. There is also an elephant shaped commode but my picture does not do it justice.
Here I am hoping for a good review of Absent a Miracle from the Golden Sexlink and the Black astralorps.

Fort Bragg is way up north in the land of the redwoods, and I can say unequivocally that I have fallen in love with the towering redwoods. As I drove south I kept stopping to walk among them on the bright orange pine needle carpet and get that cathedral-feeling. Feeling short is not exactly a new thing for me (q.v.) but next to a redwood we are all puny. At the far end of one fallen hollow tree I happened upon the complete carcass of a deer. At first I thought he (antlers, hence male) had been burned, but then I realized that he had probably just died there and rotted, leaving his blacked pelt stretcehd across his skeleton. But how did he die? Bout 50 miles later I started thinking about this dead deer and really regretted that I had not extracted the skull and antlers to bring home. Thought that might have altered my plans for having only carry-on for the red-eye flight.

Later that day, and hundreds of miles of tall trees and ravishing coastline later, found me in Pescadero, a town of 2000 with orchards, artichoke fields and goat farms. Liz and I were enjoying a pre-prandial cocktail when my cousin Chris walked in from the office. He proceeded to lay several large black garbage bags flat on the rectangular dining room table. At each of three places he set out a pair of blue latex gloves and a kitchen knife. In the center of the table he emptied out a large bag filled with black walnut seeds.
Now I claim a certain intimacy with Juglans nigra. There is a large black walnut tree next to our house which means that in the autumn when the fruits start to fall, they land on our back porch and stain it black (these nuts were used as a dye by early settlers) or they drop onto the driveway and in a windstorm it sounds like someone has a machinegun out there. Any car that has ever spent time in our driveway has a roof and hood scarified by falling walnuts. We hand out hardhats to guests. Also, the nuts and roots of the black walnut are not friendly to neighbors. They secrete Juglone into the soil and even the air in their vicinity, and woe betide any plant that has the temerity to grow there.
But the shade is lovely, and the wood is beautiful and valuable. Just do not plant them near your house.
Meanwhile my cousin is fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a walnut forester. We donned our latex gloves and cut open the walnuts, removed the green husk and pith, and then scraped the nuts to make them readier to sprout. We probably did a few hundred before dinner. Later Chris would store the husked nuts in peat moss and then plant them. And the world will be a better place for having more trees.

Tomorrow I will continue (briefly) with the tree theme and tell you about the Tree Circus of Santa Cruz.

CAVEAT JUGLANS NIGRA

I’d like to say a few words about Juglans nigra. We have a black walnut tree right next to the driveway and overhanging the back porch. (I have no idea of its age, older than me and maybe even older than the house. Its height is equally unknown – I should have paid attention in trigonometry.) No one possessed of a brain should ever plant a black walnut tree near a house. It is a menace.
Yes, I know the wood is valuable, the shade is lovely and some people go to the trouble of collecting the walnuts, soaking them for two weeks and then smashing them with a hammer to extract the nutmeat which is then considered edible.
What you need to know that is that falling black walnuts (inside their greenish drupes) are deadly projectiles. They dent car rooftops (see the hood of my car for most recent evidence of such) and cause craters to form in the skulls of small children.
Assuming a black walnut falls unimpeded to the porch, and assuming it rains anytime soon, then a black walnut takes on its vilest incarnation. The drupes soften and reveal a black squishy pulpy mess containing juglone & this stains permanently. If you want to pockmark your porch with random black splotches, you might not find this objectionable, if you did not first sustain a concussion. Our ancestors used it to dye their hair and I am sure it worked wonders. On their scalps as well
On a windy afternoon or evening in the autumn when the breezes rustle the branches and shake loose the walnuts, I stand in my kitchen and continue to be startled and jolted from my sauté-induced reverie, though I should know better. It sounds like Baghdad out there, or Mogadishu, or anyplace where machine guns randomly pepper buildings with bullets, then stop just as randomly, then start again. (It’s more unnerving that way.) So it is with the falling and flying back walnuts.