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Swan Point kids going nuts for planting effort
Walnut trees drop environmental bounty on community
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Courtesy of KELLY FLEMING
Kids in Swan Point spent a day last weekend harvesting walnuts that fell from the nearly 100 walnut trees in the community. The nuts will be used to reforest different areas in Maryland. Pictured are Colten Becker, left, Jackson Mote, Taylor Cook, Chase Childers, Tyler Koch, Emily Fleming, Caroline Wierich and Riley Anne Mote.
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The sky rained walnuts a couple of weeks ago in the Swan Point community in Issue and last weekend kids who live in the neighborhood spent the day harvesting the nuts for later planting in different areas in the state.
Winds gusting up to 35 miles an hour a couple of weeks ago in the waterfront community along the Potomac River shook thousands of walnuts to the ground, said Ken Robinson, president of the Swan Point Property Owners Association and a candidate who is running for the District 1 Charles County commissioners seat against incumbent Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D).
Robinson said he alerted everyone in the community about the heavy harvest of walnuts and suggested the nuts be collected for delivery at the end of October to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service division in La Plata.
Every year 6 million seedlings are grown from harvested walnuts at the John S. Ayton State Tree Nursery near the town of Preston in Caroline County, Robinson said. About 47 conifer, hardwood and shrub species, mostly native to Maryland, are grown from seedlings at the nursery, he said.
The seedlings from the walnuts collected at Swan Point will be grown at the nursery and then planted along the water as part of the state's Stream ReLeaf Buffer Planting program to help improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.
"There are literally hundreds of bags of walnuts that have been collected so far," he said, adding that there are about 500 walnut trees in the community with some of the 500 lots bearing five or more trees. "The kids were out all weekend collecting the walnuts."
Natural resources officials appreciate the effort, as well, said Steve Koehn, DNR's forest service director, in a press release.
"These walnuts may be small and insignificant now but as they grow they become part of the key to a sustainable future," he said in the release.
"Trees are not only beautiful to look at and improve the visual landscape. They also contribute to the health and vitality of the bay, its tributaries and our natural resources."
Jill Mote and her three children spent the day Saturday harvesting fallen walnuts from along Wollaston Circle.
"I thought that it would be a great project for them," she said. "They had fun. The kids estimated that they picked up about 1,000 walnuts that day and there are a lot more in the trees that haven't fallen yet."
A lot of folks, especially elderly neighbors, said they appreciated the effort because the large nuts play havoc with lawn mowers when there are a lot of them on the ground, Mote said.
"Most residents said they welcomed the children's help," she said. "We're trying to organize another collection day before the end of the month. We'll keep picking them up until they're gone.
"This is just a small community effort," she added. "It's just kids who want to help out in the neighborhood. It seemed like a good thing to do to teach kids why it's important to reforest areas."
Mote said she hopes that more kids who live in Swan Point should grab their parents and harvest some walnuts to help the environment.
"There are a lot of walnuts and kids in Swan Point," she said. "It's just a natural fit."
Got nuts?
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is accepting walnuts that have fallen from trees in the area to use as seedlings to plant more trees in Maryland.
For more information, call Teri Baker at 703-401-1183.
