Every summer, we notice the black walnuts forming high up in the trees lining our fields and wait until they start to drop in late summer/early fall before collecting them for the deeply colored hulls.  Known as an "allelopathic" plant, this plant has the ability to inhibit the germination of other plants exposed to the decomposing fruit due to potent inhibiting chemicals such as juglone.

Wearing gloves to avoid staining our hands, we remove the hulls from the nuts and make them into a deeply colored and aromatic tincture.  The ability of black walnut to keep away unwanted plants can be used by humans to keep away unwanted beings of all kinds, establishing boundaries when used internally as a low dose digestive bitter or topically (commonly used on nails).

We make the tincture from fresh hulls of the fruit at a ratio of 1:2. Each mL of tincture contains the equivalent of approximately 500 mg of fresh herb.