Plant Spotlight: Seek my Balls? Nuts? We're all Nuts for Walnuts

Man, we don't talk enough about trees on here. Or ask people to show us their juglans...but here we are. I mentioned Juglans Nigra earlier in the year as a caution to folks with Black Walnut trees growing near their gardens. While they produce a beautiful food, shade, and a prolific amount of nuts, they also produce a pretty effective natural herbicide called juglone (along with many others from their genus like shagbark hickory, butternut, pecan, though they produce it in lesser amounts). Juglone is exuded by the roots, can be found on leaves and nut hulls, so even just letting them shed over your garden in the fall is not the best idea.

Food that comes from a tree is awesome. Trees are about as low maintenance it gets. What about food that comes from a tree, and the byproducts can also be useful as medicine? Sign me up, chief. Just don't leave them growing near your other stuff. That herbicide was created to weed out the competition, and it does so very effectively. That's right, trees are racist, too. Naturally adapted to genocide. Almost like violent competition is part of the natural order, so take your faggy hippy hugfest elsewhere. We're killing everyone that doesn't think like us today, because this is a Walnut town, pussy.

This tree has been purposely cultivated for ages, Thousands of years back we grew these bad boys in Europe, as early as 100 BC, though they may have originally been native to Asia and the Middle East. They like growing near creek beds because they're thirsty trees, but they can do well without it if you get enough rain. The word Juglans means "acorn of Jupiter", because we thought these nuts to be so powerful. Believe it or not, in the Middle Ages people were blanching, crushing, and soaking nuts to create a nutritious nut milk, long before BIG FAGGOT made a racist attack on all things dairy. North America also had evidence discovered of Walnut consumption as far back as 2000 BC, so these things got around, and everywhere they did, people enjoyed their benefits. Pennsylvania Dutch considered them to be a sign of fertile soil and property worth buying, and were often a deciding factor in where a homestead would be placed.
Even during World War 2, families in Southern France turned to these nuts as a source of protein during hard times.

Did I mention this was a tree? So yeah, in addition to food, you get a beautiful hard wood as you maintain your grove, prized by woodworkers, cabinetmakers, and craftsmen. Settlers found the closely grained wood had a rich brown heartwood that was exceptionally resistant to rot, so it often found a home in fenceposts and shingles and outdoor construction.

Nutritionally, why do you eat a Walnut? Black Walnuts boast the highest protein "content" of any nut, for one. Really useful in a pinch. They're low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat, and are excellent sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Fiber, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Potassium, Selenium, Zinc and other minerals, and make a great sugar and cholesterol free snack.

The nut falls down as a greenish tennis ball sized gift from above, and while we take the nut from inside the greenish hull that protects it, the hulls are also useful as medicine or in crafts, you don't need to waste any of it. I can tell you from experience the pigment giving it that greenish color is one of the strongest dyes around. A few drops on your clothes, or even other surfaces like wood floors can stain it forever. As a result they were often used to dye fabrics. If you don't feel like making your own clothes like a peasant, though, you can also make a great tincture out of the nut hulls that can be used as medicine intermittently for your animals or yourself, and it can also be made into salves and creams. For topical application it's low risk, for internal usage you should only take when you have a specific reason and not for prolonged periods of time, as it's potent. Its antimicrobial effects act like a bath bomb on your insides, inhibiting nasty growth (but if you're healthy, no need to use internally, just eat the nuts, because you do have gut flora that you want- save the medicine for when you actually need it).

They give off a pungent odor, and native people used them for insect repellant for a very long time. Other topical uses included skin cleansing, because their high tannin "content" make them great antifungal, antimicrobial, antiparasitic medicine. A few drops of tincture in your goats' water makes a decent anti parasitic (or any other livestock prone to them), just like any anti-parasitic, don't overuse it. Give it to them occasionally, they should never have an outbreak. Moderation is important in life.

There are so many foods and desserts based around walnuts I don't even have to tell you how or why to cook them, just do it, asshole.

What are you waiting for? Seek these balls. You can thank me later.

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