Obsessed by sky watching these past eclipsical (is that a word?) days, I found it interesting that the sky separated into the three primary colours of blue, red, and yellow. Where they overlap, there is a hint of what you get when you mix those colours – yellow and red = orange; red and blue = purple; but I couldn’t get the blue to meet the yellow for green, so not quite a rainbow effect. Still, a pretty good selection for a painter’s palette.
The black walnut (see photo below) in our front yard has a bit of history. I bought it 25 years ago, thinking it was a walnut tree (the kind that gets walnuts on it). Well, it does get walnuts, but you have to use a sledgehammer to open them and there isn’t a whole lot of meat inside the thick, rock hard shells.
When the Captain and I planted the walnut tree, it was just a five-foot stick. Our yard was bare – no landscaping yet – and it was late February, cool and drippy. The neighbours walked past as we dug a hole in the mud and put this “stick” in the ground, and applauded. I think they thought it was a joke – poking fun at ourselves for the bare front yard.
Now, 25 years later, that stick is a beautiful black walnut. I’m guessing it’s over thirty feet tall. The walnuts are still not meant to be eaten, as it’s more of an ornamental tree. But I did go out and buy another walnut tree for the back yard. It’s almost as tall as the ornamental one but this one gets the kind of walnuts you can eat.
The two types of walnut trees have completely different leaves too.
Here, below, is the tree with edible walnuts.
In the photo below, you can see the walnuts on the tree.
They are still encased in their green shell, but those coatings break open as the nuts ripen and fall when the weather turns chilly. A nutcracker will do the trick for opening these walnuts. No sledgehammer needed.
Beautiful colours Anneli! I’m glad you have the correct nuts these days. ❤️
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I was quite disappointed that first year when I tried to crack a walnut from the black walnut tree. I really did have to use the sledgehammer and it was slim pickings inside. I thought it was odd though that the walnuts of each taste the same, but the leaves are completely different on the two kinds of trees.
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I see, what would happen if you put the black walnuts in a pot of boiling water, or just cold and let them soak?
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I grew up with a black walnut tree and we did use them for eating. Nobody ever told us not to! Of course, having parents that grew up in the depression, it may have been a waste not, want not sort of thing. Love your sunset photos. Even without the green. 🙂 I hope your air has cleared up some.
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The taste is there but what a chore to get into those black walnuts. Good for your parents, being resourceful.
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Reminded me of my childhood in the countryside (Back Forest).
Walnut trees growing along the roads, gracious enough to provide us kids with (a few) free walnuts 🙂
Cheers !
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The free ones have a better flavour, don’t they?
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Walnuts remind me of Christmas. My mom bought them most years and put them out in a bowl to eat during the holidays. I loved using the little hand nut cracker. That sky is gorgeous, Anneli! 🙂
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Yes, Christmas and walnuts! That’s because they’re dried and ready to eat by that time. One of my favourites. I think our skies have been more spectacular lately because of the remnants of smoke in the air from the wildfires (which are still burning, but maybe not quite so out of control).
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Where are you, Anneli? We have them here, too. I’m in Northern California.
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Vancouver Island.
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Wow! I am sure it’s beautiful there!
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Love the sunset photos with the trees. The one walnut (I think it is the Black Walnut) tree leaves look quite tropical!!
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Yes, they do have that tropical (palm-like) look. That’s why I thought it made a nice silhouette. Too bad the shells of those nuts are so think and hard. It gets lots of them.
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Beautiful.
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It was a colourful evening.
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Spectacular sunset shots!
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Thanks Belinda. I usually have trouble getting the red to come through but for some reason it worked today.
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Gorgeous colors in those sunsets! The walnuts must be a real treat, one that we don’t have here.
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Yes, they are a real treat. I love walnuts.
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The sky shots are beautiful. We had black walnut hardwood floors in our house in Edmonton. I wonder if your tree is the same type. I think the wood came from the southern US.
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Probably. It’s one of the types they use to make gun stocks. Should be good for floors.
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This is so beautiful, Anneli. And, I had no idea of the different types of walnut trees. Great post!
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Thank you, Jennie. I’m glad you liked the post.
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You’re welcome, Anneli! 🙂
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I love it when people plant trees and enjoy watching them grow, Anneli. It’s a generous gift to the planet, its creatures, and the future. I hope you have lots of edible walnuts!
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All the fruit trees are empty or nearly so this year, but there are a few walnuts on the trees. We had a late, cold spring and no bees.
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“No bees” has a very ominous sound to it.
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It does. I’m quite worried about the decline in bees. This year we saw the effects of it more than other years. Our pear tree had no a single pear on it. The three plum trees are empty. No Transparent apples, hardly any Jonagolds, a few Gravensteins, and a couple of handfuls of Macs. Very poor crop. Imagine if this happened worldwide! I’ve heard that many people with small orchards had about the same situation as we have here. It’s a concern.
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It is happening all over the US. We’re importing bees now from Australia to pollinate the larger orchards. And yet we continue to poison them. It’s alarming.
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I have never seen a walnut tree before. They are indeed magnificent. 🌼🌼🌼
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They are amazing trees and the nuts are so tasty.
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That’s how life works, we learn from experience. Now you have a “fruitful” tree with walnuts once you learned, but it sounds like both trees turned out to be blessings. We lost our only tree (white birch) in the storm I posted about. We can’t decide what we want to replace it, so we’re going to wait until next spring to plant something new.
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Oh, I’m sorry you lost your birch. We have one too in the back yard. I would hate to lose it.
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That photo is so gorgeous it almost hurts my eyes. OK, so what is the difference between trees for regular walnuts and trees for black walnuts (that you eat)? Oh, those taste so good.
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They have different leaves (quite different), and the black walnut is considered ornamental while the other is the traditional one used for nuts we eat. The black walnut shells are thick and very hard and there is less meat in them than the other kind of walnut has, but the flavour is the same. Very hard to get the ornamental kind open and have any meat left that isn’t mashed. 😉
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I beg to differ :)! The flavor is not the same at all! Black walnuts have a sweeter richer flavor. And they are so delicious in ice cream!!! But nobody eats them any more because they are too hard to open, I guess. But why can’t they be cracked professionally and put in ice cream? Too expensive these days, I am guessing. Interesting that they are considered ornamental!
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Well, that’s good to know, about them being sweeter. At the time when I first tasted the sledgehammered walnuts I had nothing else to compare them to. Once the other walnuts came on, I had no reason to go back to fighting with the hard walnut shells.
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Hah, yes, it’s really a different flavor. The black ones have a “wilder” flavor that is richer and more intense, hence, sweeter.
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Breathtaking images, crystal clear and crisp.
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Thank you, Marcia. Nice to see you here.
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You’re welcome Anneli, you have a lovely blog, thank you for the great posts.
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Hearing that (I mean “reading that”), makes my day. Thank you. Have a great rest of the week.
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Beautiful post I missed, Anneli. I always like walnuts but we would take them and line up around the cement patio edges, spaced to get dried out. We would turn them over and wait some more. A hammer helped but that black stain is a mess if it isn’t dried enough.
I like the flavor of pecans and almonds but haven’t had pecan trees. Nicely discussed and educational, too. 🙂
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Would love to have a pecan tree but I’m sure they wouldn’t do well here.
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