- Walnuts, around since 7000 B.C., are the oldest tree food known to man.
- Michelangelo used walnut oil to help dry the paint in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
- Walnut trees yield their first nuts for commercial production 6 to 8 years after planting, and can continue to produce walnuts for as long as a century.
- Walnuts are removed from trees by shakers.
- A Japanese tire manufacturer uses ground walnut shells to improve the grip of its tires.
- In Greek mythology, when Carya died, Dionysus, who loved her, transformed her into a walnut tree. The goddess Artemis carried the news to Carya’s father and commanded that a temple be built in her memory. Its columns, sculpted in wood in the form of young women, were called catyatides, or nymphs of the walnut tree. These same columns, in marble, can be seen at the Acropolis in Greece today.
- Old country lore maintains that if you whip a walnut tree, it produces more nuts.
- The first commercial plantings in California began in 1867 when Joseph Sexton, an orchardist and nurseryman in Santa Barbara County, planted English walnuts.
- California Walnuts account for 99 per cent of the commercial U.S. supply and two-thirds of the world supply of walnuts.
- Walnut tea is a natural way to add bold chestnut tones to dark hair.
Crush 8-10 walnuts and place crushed walnuts with shells into 8 oz of boiling water. Let cool, strain to remove shells, and keep refrigerated. Spray on hair to add a wash of more intense color, and re-apply weekly to maintain.
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