Walnuts

The Autumn leaves are falling, but so are the walnuts. We have several walnut trees around our barn and I hauled away a front end loader bucket full a walnut before turning the job over to the neighborhood squirrels.

When most people in this area think of walnut trees, they think of the eastern black walnut(Juglans nigra) which is native to eastern North America. The nuts of the black walnut are food for many rodents and the wood is highly prized for its dark-colored, straight grained, true heartwood. The nut (fruit) of the black walnut develops inside a round, tennis ball sized bright green husk that falls from the tree in October or November.



While black walnuts are more abundant in this area, we also have some butternut(Juglans cinerea) or white walnut trees growing at our barn. The fruit of the butternut is a lemon-shaped nut, produced in bunches of two to six together with the nut surrounded by a green husk. Butternut wood is light in weight and is highly rot resistant, but is much softer than black walnut wood.