DIY "not to do tip" of the day with black walnut nuts for planting

[cavey]

My tip of the day, for those of you that want to try and harvest black walnuts to plant in the spring - just buy seedlings....

I've done seeds from oaks, I have done others as well - and I knew walnuts can stain. I was wearing rubber gloves but they had a tear or two. The nuts were still green with very little darkening and only a few had the maggots in them. So I was not working with dark juice. Just the green and yellow husk and what ever clear juice they had.

Now it looks like I took a trip to the peak of Mt Everest - K2 and came back with frostbite.

Im going to push through with this project as I husked half a wheel barrow full of nuts and its not like staining my hand more will hurt. Just cant wait to see how many weeks it takes for my thumb to look alive again.

 

[Jerry-B-WI]

Do you have to husk them? Or could you wait until the husks dry out?

 

[cavey]

Years ago, I made drying cages for them then just direct planted them with very little luck.

On a whim here yesterday i saw them dropping- and having two BW trees in the back yard I grabbed a wheel barrow half full of them. Looked up on google "how to" and decided to give this a try. I will likely cold stratify them in the fridge overwinter or just direct plant them into the garden next to my white oak acorn bed from two years ago that is full of new oaks. Just wanted to give it a try again. I have heard of people just planting them as they found them. Grab a bucket and a shovel (thats what the squirrels do)

I honestly dont know the best way to do it.

This was just one of those oh crap moments - when i peeled off the gloves I had a nice surprise -- though I would share. Its Just that these guys stain even when they husks are green ... wear better gloves than I did, My hand looks terrible. I took a foot callus scrapper and ground on my thumb for a bit and got back to regular color so Im hoping in a week or so it will be mostly gone. But my thumb looks terrible and me and the wife are going out for dinner this weekend.

as a side note to a side note... those two BW trees have been a pain in my arrrrs as yard trees - never plant them in a yard or near a garden area. They belong on the back 40.