Fixing a Gap In A Hedge - Part One - Basic Hedge Laying

 So, we've had a very stressful week and I've not been on the smallholding much, but I put this video together the beginning of the week before and I I thought I'd still share it with you all. 

Down by the duck pen there is a huge gap in one of the hedges. It bothers me every time I walk past it. After spending a few days hedging laying the week before I thought I'd tackle it. In doing so it should give me (some of) the materials for my larger stretch of hedge to be laid later. 

Planting 300 Willows In A Morning

 Trees amaze me

 I work with wood every day and yet there's not a day when I'm not amazed by them.

I try to make sure I plant more than I cut down and I managed to tip the balance again on this the other day at my dad and brothers. 

They're building a new set of barns and had created a bund behind it to shield the buildings from the neighbours view. This bund is the very typical red clay soil that we have on their farm. It takes a while for trees and stuff to establish but then it romps away once it gets its roots down. 

So my brothers idea was to plant it up with willow and maybe undertow it with something else to prevent the weeds (nettles, docks and fat hen) from establishing. When I thinned out my section of hybrid willow here. 

I've no idea how many we planted but it must be about 300. Watch the shirt video above to see how we got on. 

Like having lots of willow growing? 

Short Rotation Willow Coppice - Managing Growth

So I had one more job to do on my willow coppice and that was to manage the growth that came back from last years cut. 

 Each stool had put up loads of shoots, which might be ideal depending on what you're after. But as I want to grow this for firewood I'd rather have a few good stems where the growth could be directed to. 

So in this video I show what I'm taking off each plant to grow on, there are a few risks involved (rabbits or deer could eat the remaining shoots) but hopefully this will direct the tree to grow a lot stronger and have larger firewood for me to burn in a few years time. 

Watch the video and let me know what you think. 

Apple Tree Pruning An 11 Year Old Tree

I've done another apple tree pruning video, this time it's a 11 year old tree which needed quite a bit of growth off it. 

I've filmed it in pretty much real time but it shows the process I go through to tackle a tree like this. 

 

Please let me know what you think (comments on YouTube would be even better as it helps other people find my videos)! 

Seedswap 2023

This post is a little late, as the seed swap was the weekend before last, but I've been busy (as always)! 

It was a great day again. 

There's something about a seed swap that's hard to describe. Someone said to a member of the team that she found the vent "nourishing" and I think that really sums it up.