Outside The Box

“It sounds like we’re under attack again,” Tracey said, marking the ongoing change of seasons. Walnuts hitting the metal roof of the barn sound like small arms fire. The ground is invaded by hard spheroids hiding in the grass and waiting to turn an ankle. A helmet is not a bad idea on a windy day.

I’ve heard the sound of walnuts attacking every October from the very first year we built the house. The barn and the walnut trees were here first, so even the deer who graze the meadow are not frightened, having heard that sound for generations. Humans are more easily startled, however, along with any chickens who might live under a metal roof surrounded by black walnut trees.

The relationship between black walnuts and erstwhile gardeners like me is complex. The trees are beautiful, and their shade is unparalleled on a hot summer day. Nothing tastes better in cakes and cookies than the sweet and earthy walnut, and as a kid on my grandparents’ farm, I spent many hours pursuing a prize that does not yield to casual efforts.

I’ve never found a device designed by man for cracking walnuts as effective as one special rock embedded in the ground beneath the tree that still stands where my grandfather’s corn crib once invited us to explore. The tree gripped the bank of the dirt road that ran next to the crib and dropped its fruit under the wheels of an occasional traveler, which would effectively remove the thick, staining husks of the walnuts, saving us time and green fingers.

The rock had an indentation ideal for holding the nut steady, and there were plenty of fieldstones from which to choose just the right striker: Too heavy, and the walnut was smashed into paste; too small, and you were more likely to crack your knuckles than the nut. The strikers were soon forgotten, but we always returned to that perfect rock anvil.

I briefly considered moving the rock to my own walnut grove, but it is held tightly by the roots of the tree, and I don’t have the heart to disturb an old friend. The image of those roots, however, brings me back to the “complex” considerations of a gardener who loves black walnuts. Those roots are the bane of most fruits and vegetables and many trees as well.

Every part of a black walnut contains juglone, which is a very effective growth inhibitor. It is a survival mechanism that allows the tree to limit competition for light and nutrients in a thick forest canopy. You can forget growing cucumbers or tomatoes near a black walnut tree.

For as many years as I have gardened in black walnut country, I have fought those roots. I’ve seen them run 30 feet or more into the loose, rich soil of a garden (can’t blame them for that) to curse the tomatoes growing over them. I’ve pulled and ripped and plowed and trenched, but walnuts are relentless, and it was always a losing battle.

It’s a wonderful thing how the wisdom of our ancestors, deposited into the preoccupied and shallow consciousness of our younger selves, can survive intact like the seeds of a redwood tree, waiting many years for the proper conditions to germinate. “Listen to what Nature is trying to tell you. Work with it instead of against it.” Those are the words of my father and grandfather, passed on from generations past.

So I listened, finally. The upper garden is now surrounded by black walnut trees that feed many squirrels and flavor a cake or two. Inside the circle, onions and garlic grow quite happily, along with a couple of pecan trees and Concord grapes. Partridge pea is thrilled to grow under our walnuts, much to the delight of one fat whitetail doe and countless thousands of pollinators who go there for sustenance. The tomatoes live elsewhere, far from the walnuts.

Nature, my ancestors, and I are currently in conversation with Creeping Charlie. Charlie likes to travel, and he’s not picky about where he grows. He’s a fast worker too, and can quickly crowd out anything else that wants to live at ground level.

Charlie is considered an invasive species, though he has lived here since the 1600s. He came over with some of the Europeans who were also considered invasive species by other peoples who lived here long before they arrived.

I’ve dug, pulled, plowed, and torched Creeping Charlie to keep him under control. This fall, during the dry weather and the days of high fire danger, I decided to work with him on a limited basis instead, and allowed him to grow along part of a firebreak above the house. While grass withered and leaves crunched, the bands of green occupied by Charlie stayed moist. I let him run between a few tomatoes as well, and those grew faster and required less watering than the others.

The trick was in the management. Too much, and the tomatoes suffered. Too little, and the ground became parched without mulching. Charlie kept my string trimmer busy throughout our dry September, but the tomato sandwiches kept coming.

It’s unfortunate that humankind, in seeking solutions to problems of our own creation, is usually blind to the wisdom of nature. Nature competes, but it also cooperates. We seek to dominate where we should manage instead. When we find out we can’t push the river, we dam it up. Then we are surprised and offended when our lake fills up with silt, sewage, and parrot feather (Myriophyllum aquaticum, another invasive species).

We are in a time of transition. Or you might say it’s Friday. Every day is a day of transition. But our collective consciousness is focused in such a narrow frame that every change seems “unprecedented.” Too many places we are told to look, we even consider each other an invasive species. It’s a hard nut to crack.

And in some cases, we are just that – invasive. This, too, is part of nature. Nature is dynamic, and as much as we imagine otherwise, we are part of it. Sadly, we have lost much of the wisdom that might help us better navigate these times. We have too few managers and farmers, and too many dominators and developers.