I came home from work yesterday and was milling about in the forest garden and generally tidying up about the place in anticipation of a large rain storm we were forecasted to receive during the night. While doing so, I thought to check on the black walnuts that have been stratifying in pots on the north side of my house. Two have sprouted. That was much quicker than anticipated so now much/most of my attention must shift towards getting them into the ground.
Extensive reading about the growing of walnuts led me to the understanding that the nuts had to be cold stratified for 3 to 4 months before the seeds will break dormancy. Cold stratification is defined as reaching a temperature that averages ~ 40 degrees. A 30-day month is ~ 2000 hours. We have had so few cold days this year that I started re-potting the walnuts into several layers placed in relatively tiny buckets and placing them in the refrigerator thinking that there was no possible way that we were going to receive sufficient chill hours for them to break dormancy outdoors. I ran out of room in the fridge so ~ half were left outside in pots.
However, even though the internal temperature of the pots left outside never went below 60 degrees (per the trusty ol' Pampered Chef digital thermometer) the seeds are germinating.
Now comes the fun part: puttin'em in the ground as quickly as possible.
Assuming those two aren't the only two that have or will germinate, the sprint is on.