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

614 Upvotes

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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.

101

u/OrdieBoomer Sep 06 '26

Love the ole piss my dad off part lol

30

u/Curb_the_tide Sep 07 '26

Dad here: goddammit these kids

7

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!!!

19

u/buy-more-swords Sep 07 '26

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

11

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.

4

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.

10

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.

3

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.

3

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.....

-1

u/ShidAndFarder Sep 10 '26

Sounds like the horse was just old as shit and died

4

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‽😭😭

4

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

1

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.

2

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

7

u/KeyOption3548 Sep 07 '26

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

3

u/SomebodyElseAsWell Sep 07 '26

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

1

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.

4

u/HopefulTree1980 Sep 06 '26

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

13

u/meanblazinlolz Sep 06 '26

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

15

u/GarconMeansBoyGeorge Sep 06 '26

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

3

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.

3

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!

3

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.

2

u/Cultural_Pair6511 Sep 07 '26

Good for batting practice too

1

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.

1

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.

1

u/vblink_ Sep 13 '26

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