r/composting • u/dockellis13 • Sep 06 '26

Humor Can I compost these?

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Courtesy of local squirrel. Tree of heaven nuts I believe. 17 gal tub

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u/Late_Resource_1653 Sep 06 '26

Those are absolutely black walnuts.

They may break down, but they will poison absolutely everything they touch and be sure nothing else will grow.

My first year growing a veg garden next to that bastard tree I learned my lesson. Raised beds from then on.

223

u/CethinLux Sep 06 '26

Yep black walnuts are allelopathic, the secrete a chemical that suppresses plant growth around them called juglone. Its most concentrated in the roots, flower buds and hulls of the fruit

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u/LaphroaigianSlip81 Sep 06 '26

We had one of these in our back yard when I was a kid. My brother and I would throw these at each other. At first they were hard and it would sting you. But as they rotted, they would turn black and smell so bad when they hit you. You would get a black stain on your hand and on your shirt if you got hit and the smell would linger. We would throw them at the back of the shed and leave stains on it and piss off my dad.

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u/OrdieBoomer Sep 06 '26

Love the ole piss my dad off part lol

29

u/Curb_the_tide Sep 07 '26

Dad here: goddammit these kids

8

u/KoA07 Sep 07 '26

Shed here: goddamnit these kids

3

u/SCDannyTanner Sep 07 '26

Kids here, God damnit these sheds

2

u/HAmasuda Sep 08 '26

Walnut tree here: hell yeah

2

u/chipfromWV Sep 08 '26

Fallen walnut here, god damn gravity!!!

21

u/buy-more-swords Sep 07 '26

The black stuff is really useful- you can make lovely ink out of it.

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u/satansfloorbuffer Sep 07 '26

My dad and his dad used to make walnut stain with them and sell it. They’d lay them on a tarp and run over them with a car.

8

u/WynnGwynn Sep 07 '26

And kill pets with them. I hate my neighbors tree. It hangs over my yard and the squirrels brings those things over.

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u/CenturyEggsAndRice Sep 07 '26

They're toxic to pets?

Our neighbor had a couple and I never knew that. When the nuts fell on my side of the fence, I just gathered them up to use for dye.

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u/Kain_1337 Sep 07 '26

Basically every part of the tree is extremely toxic to horses. The fruit, the bark, the flower buds, roots. We have to clear one of our pastures of them every year.

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u/CenturyEggsAndRice Sep 07 '26

Ah!

I’ve never had horses of my own, didn’t know that. I do know horses can’t have avocado though.

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u/Emergency-Crab-7455 Sep 07 '26

Can vouch for this....my SIL lost one of her horses because she used black walnut sawdust for bedding. The "free sawdust" was an expensive lesson for her.

-1

u/ShidAndFarder Sep 09 '26

Sounds made-up

1

u/Emergency-Crab-7455 Sep 09 '26

Well, if you don't believe me.....how about: Univ. of Minnesota Extension Service....Colorado State University, College of Veterinary Medicine.....Michigan State University Extension Service (for starters). 16 year old horse, developed laminitis within 10 hours of new bedding in stall. Perrmant damage to interior of feet, put down by the vet because of the pain.The vet also confirmed the present of black walnut sawdust in the bedding.

I take it you don't have horses.....

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u/StupendusDeliris Sep 07 '26

WOAH WAIT WHAT?! The house a few doors down from us has them and squirrels bring them to our house. My dog is a squirrel hater and takes the nuts they try to hide in the yard. WILL THESE KILL MY DOG‽😭😭

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u/CethinLux Sep 07 '26

Possibly. I dont recommend letting you dog eat them https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/248/2/javma.248.2.195.xml

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u/StupendusDeliris Sep 07 '26

Yeah, I don’t. As soon as I see her acting wild, self tossing it around and digging, I come out and take it if it’s one of these.

I was feeling crazy for a bit wondering where tf these seed balls were coming from.

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u/scarabic Sep 07 '26

It might be worth mentioning - casually - to that neighbor that black walnut is prized by woodworkers and if he takes the tree down a local sawyer can be hired to come out and turn it into beautiful lumber which he can sell for $$$. A sawyer is the person who operates a sawmill. Breaks trees down into lumber. They may or may not actually cut the tree down for you.

1

u/RoyceRolled Sep 10 '26

This is anecdotal, but I grew up under a massive black walnut tree. One of the dogs we had was fetch obsessed, and we could not stop him from treating the yard full of these as tennis balls. He would fetch them all damn fall, if we took them away, he would go get a different one. He would chew them all up, even once they got dark and gross, and still demand you throw the gnarled half rotted slimy black mess for him. My dad sometimes used him to pick them up from the yard when it became apparent we couldn't stop him, vut he got savvy to that and would once you got a container partially filled, then switch his mission to knocking the container over to retreive his stolen toys.

He did that every year for more than a decade, and lived to be 16, longer than average for a purebred vizsla.

2

u/engineerthatknows Sep 07 '26

Or a good leather tanning dye.

1

u/Wrong-Childhood-4461 Sep 10 '26

Tell me more. We have a black walnut in our yard and I thought about the ink. I’m into printmaking art

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u/KeyOption3548 Sep 07 '26

I've used them for dye, I've even dyed metal with them. I like the way they smell.

4

u/SomebodyElseAsWell Sep 07 '26

I like them too. They smell sort of green and spicy at the same time.

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u/ware_house33 Sep 12 '26

A local artist keeps them in a barrel in his yard and makes drawings with the ink/dye it produces.

5

u/HopefulTree1980 Sep 06 '26

We did this exact thing. Plus the tree killed all the grass underneath

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u/meanblazinlolz Sep 06 '26

This sounds like the fastest way to get a whooping from my dad. Hope you dodged the belt whips!

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u/GarconMeansBoyGeorge Sep 06 '26

Yeah I also hope their dad didn’t physically abuse them.

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u/Edmoiler13 Sep 07 '26

I had the chore of removing them from our yard as a teen. I would go out with the baseball bat and hit them into the commons area. Ruined my bat and yea they sure smelled.

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u/Nuallaena Sep 07 '26

We would ride our bikes and hit each other when trying to get them stuck in the wheel spokes. Was fun as shit and it was like jousting with black walnuts!

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u/CenturyEggsAndRice Sep 07 '26

The hulls make a really nice dye for that exact reason!

Wish I knew someone with a black walnut tree. I used to have a neighbor with several and he would let me take buckets of them any time I wanted. I dyed a lot of yarn and twine with it.

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u/Cultural_Pair6511 Sep 07 '26

Good for batting practice too

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u/TheLadyIsis Sep 07 '26

At a job site I was on we all grabbed golf clubs and played "Dodge-walnut" in the grove of black walnut trees. Sometimes we git welts or bruises, but you were for sure gonna end up with black stains. We figured it wasn't really any more dangerous than just walking through the area that time of year.

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u/ButchMcKenzie Sep 08 '26

Neighbor kids and I would do something similar. We called it stink fruit. Had no idea what it actually was at the time

1

u/LTdesign Sep 08 '26

Even peeling them when they were green would turn your hands dark brown and black too. I remember that vividly.

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u/vblink_ Sep 13 '26

Neighbor had one in their front yard we also liked to play dodge ball with them.

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u/HandsSmellOfHam Sep 06 '26

Im a woodworker and I worked with the Amish. This Amish guy Ivan told me that if you used walnut wood chip in the horse stable it will kill the horse. I dont know if its true or not but Amish Ivan believed it

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u/Pablois4 Sep 07 '26

Using walnut wood shavings in a horse stall will trigger the horse to develop laminitis - metabolic breakdown that most profoundly affects the tissue within their hooves. It's very painful and can cause a little bone inside the hoof (the coffin bone) to rotate and puncture the bottom of the sole, or can cause the hoof wall to fall off. Laminitis won't affect just 1 hoof, but all 4.

Horses can survive mild laminitis but often will have life long damage to the foot structure.

There's a saying "no hoof, no horse" - and in bad cases, the horse will not survive.

Yeah, walnut wood shavings are really really REALLY bad for horses.

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u/Expensive-Suit-593 Sep 07 '26

WOw!!! Amish dude was right!

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u/HandsSmellOfHam Sep 07 '26

That sounds terrible. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

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u/El_Cochinote Sep 07 '26

You are correct. They are allelopathic. But some plants do just fine under them because they aren’t susceptible to juglone. I have rose of sharons and also arborvitae flourishing under my large black walnut tree. https://www.wasconursery.com/plants-resistant-to-juglone/?srsltid=AfmBOopR_sz0bTu7ZqgcFKD2vNExVCnTTJIO07-CCQgtPANJ09THkV32

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u/MovieOk6625 Sep 07 '26

Apologies I misread juglone as jugalone and thought it was essence of ICP.

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u/judgernaut86 Sep 07 '26

Pure, concentrated Faygo

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u/kraziazz1 Sep 07 '26

So say I got some black walnuts and somehow mulched them and put them along my property line against where the neighbors goutweed is growing.... Would that work??

0

u/CethinLux Sep 07 '26

Unfortunately I cant find any info on walnuts working on goutweed, best bet to get rid of goutweed would be systemic herbicides or smothering the plant

2

u/kraziazz1 Sep 07 '26

Too bad it's coming from not my yard 😞 best I can do is block what comes in but it will never actually stop.

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u/UsernamesNotFound404 Sep 07 '26

Official petition to rename the chemical "Juggalo".

https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?is=RUTw_yIVmuciWhk6

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u/SinistaJ Sep 07 '26

Whoop whoop

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u/gmariee011 Sep 06 '26

Could you in theory juice them & use them as a weed suppressant

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u/meleeondeck Sep 06 '26

Only some plants are sensitive to juglone, others are immune

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u/KeyOption3548 Sep 07 '26

most of the things that grow under mine are invasive aliens

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u/dirttraveler Sep 07 '26

And jugolone breaks down quickly. I think the hazards (not counting horses) is exaggerated.

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u/houstonyoureaproblem Sep 07 '26

Definitely agree. Plenty of plants grow under black walnuts.

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u/Big-Whole6091 Sep 07 '26

Wait wait wait IS THAT WHY MY PLANTS ARE SO SLOW TO FRUIT THIS YEAR!? New house, stuffed small bed 6ft from black walnut tree because I didn't have time to put my raised beds in...

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u/AngleFreeIT_com Sep 07 '26

Can we all just agree it should be “juggalone” because it suppresses growth around itself?

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u/scarabic Sep 07 '26

One day the entire world will be walnut trees.

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u/40Breath Sep 07 '26

So a Gathering of the Juglone you say??

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u/bolean3d2 Sep 08 '26

Juglone breaks down in a good active compost mix in a few weeks and isn’t a problem.

If I was op I’d chuck those walnuts through a chipper first, then compost.

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u/Superb_End_2148 Sep 08 '26

Any idea how much it would take to become a problem? I processed a small batch of black walnuts this weekend and threw the hulls in the compost without thinking >_<

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u/butt_err Sep 09 '26

Worth noting that not all or even most plants are affected by this allelopathy. There’s a great many food and ornamental plants that survive under black walnut as well as other allelopathic plants like sunflowers just fine.

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u/Undercover_in_SF Sep 06 '26

It looks like juglone breaks down in a compost pile and is most actively dispersed by the roots.

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u/tbug30 Sep 07 '26

https://jcmg-thymes.com/2025/06/11/busting-the-myth-of-the-black-walnut-menace/

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u/tbug30 Sep 07 '26

I try to keep them out of my compost because they take forever to break down (several years), and in the meantime, they attract critters. We have too many squirrels, chipmunks and black walnuts already.

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u/Free_Broccoli_1174 Sep 07 '26

Lol. Nah. Poison isn't the word. I have 20-30 trees on my lot. Things still grow in their shade. They are lovely trees.

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u/HoliusCrapus Sep 07 '26

So you're saying these would make great ground cover where you don't want things to grow?

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u/AdmirableRespect9 Sep 07 '26

What im hearing is throw them at the devil's walking stick

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u/Kscarpetta Sep 07 '26

I have 4 around my garden. They're about 30 feet from the my garden. So not super close but not far.

This is the only year I've not had a ton of success but its also been 100+ degrees or its raining very hard. It's been a weird summer.

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u/LTdesign Sep 08 '26

Can confirm. We had three in our backyard growing up.

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u/Jagster_rogue Sep 09 '26

Will these kill Siberian elm trees? A natural killer of this invasive hell trees that grow in every crack would be nice

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u/fuckoffdylan Sep 10 '26

They have only been confirmed to suppress growth of plants in the nightshade family like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, peppers, etc.

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u/NathanDeger Sep 10 '26

I'm just now realizing my garden is exclusively nightshades and herbs...

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u/Legitimate_Carpet782 Sep 11 '26

I have them in the back of the property, NOTHING grows any closer than its branches. However I do have other trees and figs close to them, haven’t died yet from eating the fruit for twenty years. 🤣🤣

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u/AdvisorPale6917 Sep 10 '26

The study on black walnut allelopathy was not well done and the effects are largely overblown (dr. Linda chalker scott talks about this in a few sources). Most plants have a level of allelopathy, and many things don't grow great under black walnut because it is a large and competitive shade tree, similarly full/part sun plants wont do well under sugar maple. There are also a lot more chemicals than juglone in black walnut, most other trees have lots of chemicals that we havent studied. They are a lovely native tree that supports wildlife, has amazing wood, and provides a food source for people or animals in the walnuts!

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u/bangbangtangwangfang Sep 13 '26

Not really. Juglone half life is a couple weeks. If you compost these for 3-6 months there won't be a significant amount left, especially if mixed into a larger pile.

The trees actively produce juglone continuously, and it falls from the canopy.

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u/proprioceptor Sep 07 '26

Squirrels actually planted some walnuts in my raised beds this year and ruined everything. The jugloke was leeching into the beds before the saplings were even large enough to identify 😭