Walnuts and Oaks

manitoba grown butternuts getting hulled, a couple of passes in the water and they come out cleaned off. then we pack then into peat moss and refrigerate. they are available in packs of 10 on our seed shop, and we also have year old trees in our fall sale just for a few more days. #butternut

manitoba black walnut trees, year old trees in pots are ready to ship canada wide, or get fresh walnuts for seed to grow you own. most people on the prairies don't realize you can grow these large nut trees here, they're fully cold hardy in zone 3, and we've be searching for and collected seed from large heavy producing walnut trees around Manitoba to grow selections with the most cold hardy genetics. excellent shade trees, long lived, and they produce large crops of walnuts in the fall, mature trees can drop hundreds. It's the same tree that produces valuable walnut hardwood. black walnut has a thicker shell than english walnuts, so they need a good nut cracker. We have trees and seeds ready to ship, discounts in 5 packs. #blackwalnut

black walnuts starting to fall on this tree, though I've heard from others their walnuts have all dropped

black walnuts can grow in Manitoba, I've been collecting them from large trees around the province so we have the cold hardy genetics. I had no idea until a few years ago that you could grow walnuts here in zone 3 / -40. there are trees in small pots and even plugs in our fall sale, plenty of stock we had a bumper year for walnuts in 2024. butternuts too.

butternut trees have these great compound leaves as long as my arm, great canopy

acorns are available on our shop. I can ship them in small packs of 24 by letter mail worldwide, and we have a larger 100 pack inside canada that ships with tracking.

packing black walnuts for the winter, first time trying this with pots. we’re filling crates with the small pots then covering them in damp wood shavings, seems to work. by laying them down the crates can get stacked in our root cellar.

butternuts. locally sourced in Manitoba. First time I’ve had them off the tree, the husk is much thinner than a black walnut. I’ll husk them this week and get a count, might have enough to add to the seed shop along with the black walnuts. Mostly these are to grow in the spring. #butternut

collecting black walnuts for seed next spring. finally got to try this wheel tool, I picked it up for acorns but it works better on walnuts.

walnuts starting to drop in southern manitoba

acorns from last fall (left) and today, looks different right? same tree, same genetics. we had a mast year in 2023 and the oaks all over produced so the acorns were a mix of sizes with many smaller ones. this year’s acorns are more average size for the 50 year old bur oak, they’re dropping 2 weeks later and the caps are attached, probably weather related. I still have small acorns in stock for seed, but most of our reserves are sprouted now, so we’ll be out until next year. I’m shipping small ones in packs of 30.

black walnut seedling in a 3.5” pot. I found this pot size to work great for walnut and butternut, with our short growing season there’s just the right amount of roots. Also growing in air prune beds so I’ll be able to compare.

more photos of this black walnut growing at the local research station, large and full of nuts this year. If you read about black walnut growing in zone 3 /-40C you’ll find either the trees are borderline hardy, or if they do grow they won’t have nuts. I’ve found 3 large black walnut now growing in Brandon, Mb that fruit proving otherwise - but the trees are rare here and most people don’t realize a walnut tree can grow in our climate. I sure didn’t and I’ve lived here my whole life.

acorns vacuum sealed are so cool. these are easy to put in a mailer and send out, vs just in a bag. #acorn #seedsaving

zone 3 (-40F) black walnuts processed, I let most of the ripen before using a paint mixer to dehull. with some luck and caged in squirrel proof beds there will be walnut trees next year.

I have 2 sizes of black walnuts from different trees, which one is more common? or is it like apples and it varies year to year depending on fruit load? smaller nuts were from a tree having a mast year I think.. very new to walnuts (ref: “Walnuts tend to have two mast years over a five-year period.”)

excited to grow some walnut trees in the spring from locally sourced black walnuts. they are rare on the canadian prairies, until recently I had never seen one. if you google their cold hardiness you might find something like “borderline zone 3-4 and won’t fruit in zone 3”. A few trees in Brandon Mb prove otherwise, mature cold hardy trees full of black walnuts. Our winters are long and cold here and regularly hit lows from -35 to -40C #walnuts #walnuttrees #treenursery

i can pack 24 acorns into these seed packets and the mailers fit through a mail slot - so I ship them worldwide with a stamp. letter mail is so cool, breaking the rules a bit but who just ships paper anyway. #acrons

Bur Oak acorns are dropping, and it’s a race with the squirrels to collect them. We have these available for seeds, something cool about planting a tree that can live for hundreds of years. #acorn #treeseeds

bur oak acorns now available on our website, linked in our bio. They should be planted right away, and will germinate this fall if the weather is warm enough. We collected these from wild stands of local trees. www.oaksummitnursery.ca #treeseeds #acorns #buroak #whiteoak #backyardnursery #propagation

shade cloth comes off the greenhouse this time of year works good to catch acorns. #foraging #acorn