Well, in all honesty, it's not the most desirable of lawn trees, but its not the worst of the dregs, either. Kind of in the middle. In the plus column, it's a tall, stately tree with generally a very straight trunk, attractive furrowed bark, large almost "tropical" looking leaves. In the negative column, you've got the mess that the nuts can make, the husks that stain surfaces such as concrete, leaves that are prone to attack by tiny parasitic wasps that make them start dropping as early as late June, leaving the tree progressively more bare as the summer passes, the spread of "Thousand Cankers" disease that threatens the species, and they're fairly slow growing, I'd guess a minimum of about 15 years to bearing age for a seedling. They say the grafted ones bear sooner. My trees were seed-grown, planted back in the mid-late 1950s, so I basically inherited them already of young bearing age. They are only now approaching what I would call maturity in terms of height, spread, and trunk size. And, of course, the granddaddy of all drawbacks, toxic juglone flowing from the roots, leaves, husks, etc. A lot of other species die from the toxins produced by black walnuts, so it makes gardening near them a challenge. Others species tolerate it, but there are some weird quirks, such as, I've found some daylily cultivars do just fine near my trees, while others just wither and die two feet away. The "sap" mentioned above is from scale insects. That can now be treated with Bayer Advanced, I would imagine. I just last friday night finished processing the 2011 crop, and I'm so relieved it's done. Grand total from my 3 trees was 124.8 lbs of nutmeats bagged. I probably ate another 10 lbs myself while cracking, picking, and cleaning them. It was rather an epic project, relieved its over. FWIW, I'm going to throw in a plug for the machine that made it possible for me to do those in a mere 3 1/2 months of cracking -- this is an awesome nut cracker (for the record, I have NO affiliation with this company except as a very satisfied customer) -- bought one of these first of November, and it's wonderful. Kind of a pricey investment, but it should give me years of service. Here is a link that might be useful: The Drill Cracker nutcracker

Are you talking about actually cracking/shelling the nuts, or just getting the husk material off? Have seen folks use a small cement mixer with some rough rocks or chunks of bricks thrown in - and multiple water changes, to clean the husk material off the nuts. Also knew one fellow who used an old clothes dryer, sans heating unit, in a similar manner - but I'll bet you'd need to wear some earplugs with those nuts and chunks of bricks rolling around in there. But, if it's an automated cracker you want, have a look at the Mohabi cracker, here: Here is a link that might be useful: NNGA Marketplace

I have a Black Walnut tree that produces a very large crop of nuts about every other year. The roots of that tree do keep many plants from growing near and competing for nutrients, but I have not seen any problem with the compost made from the leaves (and I get a lot of leaves from that tree every year) or from the woody mulches that included branches from that tree. The hulls the nuts come wrapped in, left relatively whole, can cause any plant growing under them to yellow and even die if they are left there too long, not because of the Juglone but because the hulls can keep the plants under them from getting tghe sunlight the plants need to grow. When the hulls, and every other year I have a very large pile of them, are run through the chipper/shredder and mixed in with the rest of the to be composted material I have not seen any problem with plant growth where that compost is used. The hulls would, when piled up deep enough to suppress a plants ability to get the sunlight any plant needs to grow, be a good mulch.

I have hundreds (at least) of black walnut trees on our property. They grow like crazy. A couple years ago I removed the outer stuff and stored them. But I never got around to them! they are still hanging in the back room. good intentions. ..... My son bought me a special heavy-duty nut cracker, but they are still a challenge. And once they are cracked, they don't come out of the shell easily like English walnuts. Sometimes I think of letting a company come in and pick them all up for a price. . We have 33 acres....so there's lots of them! Maybe I should invest in an industrial size sheller? :) I think they are very good and maybe even more nutritious than English walnuts?? they are definitely more expensive. Like I told my husband.......if the economy collapses, we'll have black walnuts.........if we can get them open!