The willow will be dormant soon, so I’ve put together a list of maintenance tasks to keep your structure looking tip-top and not reverting to becoming a small grove of willow trees!

You can download the list as a word document or PDF by clicking on the appropriate link:

• Living Willow Maintenance – Task List – Word 2003 Doc
• Living Willow Maintenance – Task List – PDF

This post is also on the Living Willow Wales website.

Living Willow Wales stall at Lampeter Apple Day Oct 10th 2009

Living Willow Wales (me and Lisa) did our first willow stall back on Oct 10th 2009 at the Lampeter Apple Day, and lots of fun it was too! Getting everything together was hard work but it seemed to be appreciated. And we even had enough space to put up all of the willow letters we had made.  I was a little worried about this as although planned to be smaller our letters ended up each being about a foot high. We put on a little mini workshop for the children by bringing along a couple of Rose’s small table and chairs and providing paper, charcoal pencils (willow of course), willow rods and various willow shapes to copy. Rose did get a little territorial at one point and excluded all other children from the stall by building a barricade of chairs – she’s such a sales women! Several children where running around with willow wands (a simple willow star shape) by the end of the day. We also brought along samples of eachof the different kind of willow that we grow. We’re mainly using and selling the fast-growing structural willow (Viminalis and a viminalis x triandra) at the moment but are building up our stocks of various ornamental and basketery willow. The Salix Ethroflexuosa being the most visually impressive, being corkscrewed and bright red. We had lots of interest in the photos we’ve got of some of the amazing things people have done with willow especially Marcel Kalberer. I wouldn’t say we’ve done anything truly amazing yet, but I’m quite excited about the 40ft space ship we’ve got planned this winter!

As well as us, and apart from the appley things going on (people could bring there apples for pressing), Gary was there with his Maesyffin Mushrooms - loved the pate; a local shoe maker; a miller with flour created using one of the few genuine water mills still in operation; Transistion Lambed; and a couple of other stalls I didn’t get chance to look at.

So with the great weather, all in all a great day out.

From their site: “It’s apple and pear time of the year. In our shop we are now selling a wide range of UK produced apples and pears. To celebrate this year’s apple harvest, in conjunction with the local Permaculture Group we are organising an APPLE DAY. This year it will be held on 10th October at our shop in Lampeter, from 11am to 3pm. A local apple and tree specialist will be attending and we aim to have a range of local products and producers to help us celebrate. Hope you can join us.”

Before Xmas our non-willow seedlings will need transplanting ready for the BIG TREE PLANT in Autumn of 2010 (start planting 6000 trees over 8 acres).

We laid the hedge along the windy edge of the willow beds over the winter and it definitely seems to have had an impact on the amount of growth. But we’ll have to wait until harvest in January to see the actual effect.

So here’s to a good season for 2009/10!

More info at Living Willow Wales

• first shoots of music garlic popping up;
• 40m of very sexy hedge laying completed which my dad very helpfully came and lent a hand with (phew! 5m a day);
• harvested bundled and sold the entire willow harvest (primary schools love em – doing some great tunnel/dome designs) of about 1500 usable rods;
• harvested basketery willow and replanted it all (120 black maul, 20 white, 20 curly, 20 black, 40 americana);
• Lisa completed a basketery course and made a very professional looking log basket – we’ve already got orders for woven willow sheep;
• started to plant the first trees for Coed Bryn Helyg (500 hazel cuttings, 200 oak cuttings, 150 elder cuttings, 1000 haws on ice in the fridge waiting to go out along with 2000 birch seeds).

Willow: The willow is coming on well; some shoots are up to two feet long now. The solar molar – or whatever – is still keeping the rabbits off the willow plots inside of the woodland garden (the field below the meadow). However it’s not helping the willow in plot D, all exposed as it is out in the field although right next to the solar molar. Some of the shoots have made it up to 2ft but now 50% have been stripped of leaves or chomped off. Looks like it’ll have to be rabbit wire, or moving up of the fence to protect this plot.

Thankfully the rabbits aren’t making it down to Plot E where the new babies are all doing very well; some up to a couple of feet long now. We’ve lost a couple of cuttings, but no more than one or two per type. The curly has recovered from the frost damage and is sending out new shoots. The purpurea (delicate basketry) looks amazing; it’s sending out very slender, dark purple shoots that are almost a couple of feet long now. It looks like it might almost inspire me to get into basketry!

Allotment: The potatoes I bought at the smallholders show are now in. As are some of the peas, runner beans, purple brocolli and cabbage. The bit of rain we have had has put a couple of inches of water into the pond. We have a few babies left over so we’ll take these up the land. The garlic is interesting. The early spurt that the year old garlic bulbs put on has faltered now and they are floundering about with only four or five leaves and these don’t look very healthy. The music is doing really well as is the highest new garlic plot. We’ve mulched all of the peas and brassicas with cut grass to try and distract the slugs. The slugs are escaping from the pond so I’m going to have to start crushing them like Lisa does!

Vegetables: We’ve made a small plot next on the land for the excess seedlings we had and planted a few potatoes, peas and beans. We’re planning to put in some carrots. The pumpkin plant has gone in by the camp willow dome, as we slowly fill in the bare soil I cleared of brambles down by the hedge with our first forest garden! Fruit trees, fruit bushes and a few veg underneath.

Misc: I’ve started selecting the wood from this years hedge trimmings to make a gate for the cottage.