**Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor do I pretend to be. This article is informative and only covers the traditional uses for edible plants commonly found in the Appalachian region. It’s always best to consult a health care professional or medical doctor when suffering from any ailment, disease, illness, or injury before trying any traditional folk remedies. **
With the fruits of fall forming, you’ll see your fair share of black walnuts this season. These nuts, which come wrapped in a strong-smelling, green, hard husk, are an Appalachian delicacy although, in their raw form, few people want them around.
However, you can use them for tons of things, such as a dye, as a wood stain, and as a tasty snack or ingredient in sweet foods. Plus, they are readily available almost everywhere in Appalachia. So, why not pick up a few on your next walk and see what you can do with them?
About Black Walnuts
Folk Names: American Walnut
Medicinal Properties: antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, astringent, insecticide, antioxidant
Black Walnuts are often considered a nuisance since the tree produces a chemical called juglone that works as a growth inhibitor. Thus, plants around your black walnut trees will experience stunted growth and potentially die.
This entire process works in the favor of black walnut trees, which eliminate the competition and hoard all of the water and nutrients for themselves.
Because of their ability to harvest plenty of energy from their environment, black walnut trees are excellent producers, and they can weed your garden for you!
That’s good news considering that the nut meat of black walnuts themselves is an incredible source of food. Out of all nuts, they are the highest in protein. They also include omega-3s for a healthy heart and brain, plus they have plenty of antioxidants. They’re super healthy!
The green husk, however, is also very versatile. It contains juglone and iodine, which make it a great material to use for skin ailments such as fungal infections like ringworm and athlete’s foot.
Indigenous Americans have also used black walnuts as medicine for thousands of years. They primarily use the nut as a laxative, but they also use the nut as a brown dye, wood stain, and treatment for skin issues like eczema and herpes.
How To Identify and Harvest Black Walnuts
Black walnuts have a unique appearance that’s pretty easy to identify.
The leaves of the balck walnut tree are slender, and come October, the ground around the trunk will be littered with green nuts the size of tennis balls. The tree’s bark looks scaly, running in v-shaped strips that overlap.
You might also find some black or dark brown nuts with cracked, deflated brown husks on the ground. These brown nuts are not good to harvest, as they’ve already begun decaying.
To harvest the nuts, you can pick up any green husks from the ground or pluck them straight from the tree. They should have a unique smell – slightly citrusy and earthy. They may smell a bit like freshly mown spring grass, but it’s very difficult to describe!
How To Prepare and Use Black Walnuts
For my tests, I will be following all of these recipes in one fell swoop. So, you can too!
Before I go into any of these tips, I must tell you that the black walnuts will dye your fingers, skin, and clothing. If you care about what your hands look like, wear gloves and an apron.
I wore my black apron, but I did not wear gloves (this was all just to show you what will happen):
How To Use Black Walnuts as a Natural Wood Stain
Black walnuts will give wood a beautiful golden color if you apply the husk to the wood for a short period of time, but if you want a deep, dark brown, you can leave more of the black walnuts on the wood for a longer period.
Over time, black walnut colorants will patina as they oxidize, giving you deep, rich warm colors that age very well. However, the only downside to using black walnuts as a wood stain is that it will dry out the wood. Coating your stain in any sort of oil is a must after applying it.
So, let’s make the stain!
The pigments in black walnuts are in their husks and in their husks alone. So, if you want to harvest the nuts for eating, you can kill two birds with one stone and remove the husk for stains and dyes, then save the nuts for a snack after all that work!
Most people recommend soaking black walnut husks to remove them easily, but in my experience, the easiest way to remove them is to slice them off with a serrated knife.
Taking the husk off is a bit like pitting a peach, so you may need to cut the walnut into lots of chunks to get it all off.
As you cut, you will notice a honey-colored liquid seeping out. That’s your stain!
To use it, simply rub the walnut pieces on unfinished wood. I like to dip my husk chunks in a bit of cool water before I rub it onto the wood to give me a more even coat that’s easy to apply.
Then, let the wood dry and finish it off with some oil. You can use mineral, coconut, linseed, olive, tung oil – or anything else you have on hand. Heck, I’ve even used canola oil in a pinch.
How To Use Black Walnut as a Natural Dye
While cutting my husks into chunks, I collected them in a hemp bag and put them in some cool water to soak. I also added in a few whole black walnuts for good measure. This bag will become my “tea” to make a pot of brown dye!
Now, I have to mention, I’ve already dyed some of my handspun yarn with black walnuts, but I messed up last time. Instead of using fresh walnut husks, I used some of the brown, crispy ones that I picked up off of the ground. Turns out, half-rotten walnut husks won’t do too much to dye your fabrics no matter how long you let them sit in the “tea.”
So, this time, I’m going to prime up my wool yarn with a 15% weight-of-fiber mordant (alum) and use fresh walnuts.
I will also be dying some plant fibers, such as cotton and kudzu, which don’t need any sort of fixative or mordant when dying with black walnuts. These nuts contain tannins (like those chemicals in red wine that make it bitter), which automatically make the walnuts’ color stick to plant fibers.
To make the dye bath, add around 6 walnuts or 6 walnuts’ worth of husks into around a gallon of water. Simmer the walnuts gently for around 4 to 6 hours. Then, turn off the heat, remove the walnuts from the water (that’s why I’m using a bag), and pop your fabric in the dye bath as soon as the water stops bubbling.
During this dyebath, I was pretty impatient, and I only simmered my walnuts for around one hour. This gave me a slightly lighter brown than I intended, but I’m still very happy with the result.
Once you put your fabric and fibers in the dye, allow them to soak for as long as you wish. I will let mine soak for around 8 hours (overnight) to get the deepest, darkest brown colors. However, if you only dip the fabric in for around 5 minutes, you’ll still get a light tan color.
After you’ve soaked your fibers, remove them and allow them to oxidize. I let mine sit for half an hour outside on my trusty drying stick.
Then, rinse the fabric with cold water until the water runs clear. Hang it up to dry, then you can wash it in laundry soap. I’ve found that this dye is incredibly colorfast. Even when I got some on my rag and tried to remove it with oxi-claen and other stain removers, it didn’t budge. So, you have a strong dye here!
How To Eat Black Walnuts
If you’ve de-hulled your walnuts (read “How To Use Black Walnuts as a Natural Wood Stain” above for instructions if you skipped it), you will see the actual nutshell.
Now, this shell will be one tough nut to crack.
The best successes I’ve had are with a hammer. To break the nut, find the seam along the edge and follow it to the round, slightly pointy tip of the shell. That’s where you’ll want to hit it.
Once you break it open, you’ll see the complex, beautiful interior of the shell – and the nutmeat (I’ll never get tired of that word)!
There are tons of ways to eat these bittersweet nuts. Add them to cookies, granola, cakes, pies, and trail mix for a boost of protein and plenty of other health benefits.
