Garlic – The garlic is coming up nicely in the “graves” we built up at [...]]]> Summer is coming on afoot now and it looks like we’re in for another warm spring – hopefully not the wet summer’s we’ve been having the last couple of years. So what have we been up to – agriculturally?

Garlic – The garlic is coming up nicely in the “graves” we built up at the land. The music showed its head about a month ago and we’ve not got around to mulching yet, apart from some Lisa has done with some comfrey. We have a load of composted leaf mulch from last year’s willow that we could use instead of the grass cuttings we used from the graveyard last year – hmmm dead people compost ?-|. Again, the elephant is coming up a bit slower and is hardly coming up at all in the allotment. I don’t think the elephant likes the wetter bed we’ve put it into this year.

Living Willow Wales – We’ve got our first order for a willow structure for next year after last year’s success. So it’ll be good to get all of the organising out of the way before the season starts this year. Lisa is doing another (!) willow course in May, this time to learn how to do willow animals with Judy Macklin on life-long learning course through Aber university. She can then teach me and I love the idea of us then taking a herd of willow animals around the shows and festivals. Lisa got on really well with Judy, and she’s talking about using us for her willow next year.We’ve already had a couple of enquires about us doing workshops this summer which we’ve turned down as we’re not ready and have a lot to do this summer.

I’ve just been reading back through last years blog, and the sheep did eventually get into the pasture and eat a lot of our new basket willow. So although not much good for basketery it’ll was still good for cuttings.

Coed Bryn Helyg – As I’ve already mentioned we’ve got 500 hazel cuttings in which are coming on nicely. They are leafing but when I notice they not actually put any roots on yet. We’ve made a very impressive raised bed for the birch seeds, edged in woven willow. This is the kind of thing Lisa would like to do with all of the beds. After 4 months in the fridge the haws have still to germinate. They still look viable so I’ll probably bury them and try the slower stratification method. The oak seedlings have started to come into leaf so have survived the transplanting OK.