Willionaires

Willow gets me excited.

As a lazy man, planting and tending trees was a serious effort and the speed at which willow grows is amazing, which is why it’s planted for biomass in many parts of the World. To grow willow could hardly be simpler. For most species, you buy (or acquire) a stick, called a rod, about the size of a pencil. As the name suggests, you stick this in the ground and voila! A willow tree ensues. It’s so potent and ready to root that an infusion made from bits of willow wood soaked in water will stimulate many other plants to root, saving money on expensive hormone powders. It’s good for feeding livestock as well as having multitudinous other uses, such as weaving and forming living structures.

To give you an idea how rapidly it can grow, in my old house, there was a willow tree (I think it’s osier viminalis – common osier – but possibly hybridised with something as I’m sure the leaves were variegated) planted in the flowerbed next door. It provided too much shade for the occupants and I was asked if I could trim it in exchange for keeping the trimmings. Not the best deal in the World, you might say, and you would be right but I kept on top of it for a couple of years. One year, I was getting tired of individually sawing through the shoots that were too thick to cut with secateurs and knowing that it wasn’t a well loved shrub, I too my chainsaw and cut the thing down to a stump, about as flush to the ground as was possible. The sad stump sat there for the Winter. We has assumed that it was dead and weren’t particularly bothered. However, in the Spring, small green shoots started to appear and by the end of that year, they were up to 3m long and 30mm in diameter. IN. ONE. YEAR. I’ve taken many of these trimmings and planted them at our current property where they are doing very well, although as not coming from a well established stump, I don’t expect they’ll produce the same growth this year.

Osier viminalis

Some economics:

To buy a stick of willow on eBay, for example, costs around 50p. You can find it cheaper but you can pay a lot more.

Now. To encourage willow to produce straight shoots, it is desirable to plant them close together at, say, 50cm (0.5m) spacings. An acre is 4,047m² which, if square, is roughly 63.5m along each side. Planting a stick at every half metre would give 128 plants along each side, a total of 16,384. If each of these plants put out 10 shoots (whips) of 2 metres each, and each shoot was cut into 25cm length that would mean 80 rods per plant. In one acre, that’s 1,310,720 rods, which at 50p each, is £655,360. Per acre. Per year. The willow I cut down produced many more shoots that this – I reckon I planted about 400 rods and had many longer whips left over which I stuck in the ground for want of something else to do with them. Now, I hear what you say, selling that amount in would not only be difficult but would also attract some sort of bulk discount. Let’s say you sold the lot at 10p each. That’s still £130,000. Obviously, you’d need some sort of harvesting and cutting equipment in addition to the handling/postage costs but you can see why I asked my father-in-law, after pointing out we owned 10 acres “What colour helicopter would you like?”*

* the difficulty being that we’d have nowhere to land them as all the land would be covered in willow

Regarding biomass, we are accustomed to burning logs in this country, either on an open fire or in a woodburning stove. With a quick growing species such as willow, you might get a reasonable sized log in about 4 years, which then should be dried for a year or so before burning. Why, then, should one not be able to produce meaningful heat from the smaller shoots that we could harvest every year? The solution lies in a device known as a rocket stove, but I have only found one commercially produced version – the Stick Stove, from Black Mountain Wood Fuels (see links). However, I don’t consider this to be a very attractive stove and it’s quite a lot of money, but you must admire the technology. I am working on a similar stove, designed to work inside an old oil-fired Rayburn that we were given. Hopefully I can be burning my own willow soon and heating my workshop (unless I can convince my wife to let me put it in the house).

Trailcam pays for itself

I've connected my trailcam up to a bigger battery so can leave it out for a long time

Had it out for about 10 days close to where something had been nibbling my willow and was rewarded with this fine chap. I thought deer would be most active at night but all the images/videos I've captured of him have been early in the morning:

Cheeky deer (roe deer)

Also caught lots of other critters who are also in danger of being eaten:

Crepescular rabbit

A marked man

Sometimes they don't come alone!

Future pair of slippers

 I notice that one has a torn ear - should make it easy to identify in future videos

New springs & micro swales

Found another very boggy patch today, right above one of the ditches. Closer investigation found a small spring right on the bank (I'm sure there are others) so I dug it out a bit to see if it would create some useful flow. Was pleased to note the presence of proper clay - it's the reason for the spring being there, of course but I'd not come across it before - the other spring is on green sand, which looks like white clay but doesn't form slip in the same way. I think it's still pretty impervious to water and if some leaks through the pond dam then the trees and plants downhill will benefit from it.

Just to the left of the outlet, you can see a ramson that I planted. It's one of many dotted around so we'll see if it thrives in such boggy ground.

New spring, dam and ramson

I then had the idea of using the spoil from this digging to form a small dam across the ditch in order to create a tiny pond. It struck me that although the ditch isn't dug on contour, it doesn't have much of a gradient and thus with a series of small dams, one could form micro-swales all the way down. This tiny pond soon filled up and considering my boots don't seem to be watertight, it wasn't especially comfortable working there. Added to the fact was the incessant rain and my waterproof trousers which keep coming down.

In order to access the ditch I had to clear a lot of brambles. I call this "therapy" as using a machete certainly takes some effort. Some of the old stems were 20mm thick - there's probably a use for them (blowpipe? flute?). 

Fortunately, I started this task on an overcast, but dry, day and my heavy cotton smock (Titan) and leather gloves kept me scratch free. I piled the brash up as best I could to form a natural barrier and wildlife refuge. The field beyond is also ours so it doesn't have to be very secure but anything to stop the dogs from destroying the local fauna is a good thing in my book! You can see the dam and tiny pond in this picture with the brash pile on the far side. Plenty more brambles around for blackberry picking in the autumn and I imagine they'll soon shoot up through the brash pile anyway. I do need to get in there with a saw & open the ditch up a bit as lots of small trees have begun to invade. I can use the cut brush to reinforce my barrier and may get a bit of firewood from it too (it's mainly willow). Might be best to wait until Winter in case any birds are nesting there, I suppose.

Micro swale, brash barrier and mint

Now the bank was clear, I took the opportunity to plant some mint that we'd bought the other day from a garden centre. Planted black peppermint, ginger mint and apple mint. They'd doubled in size in the pots in under a week and this site should give them a decent home. It's quite shady but will get some direct sunlight and plenty of water. You may just be able to pick them out in the picture on the left hand side (the new spring is at the bottom of the image which is taken from the top of the bank)

Paddy field part one

As can be seen in my posts about the pond (to come, sorry!), I'm planning on digging an overflow down to the ditch. This line is currently marked by some white tape that the previous owner had left lying around (it's electric horse tape). I recently had the idea from watching some permaculture video on YouTube to use this surplus water more effectively. A bit of research indicated that a Japanese rice variety, oryza sativa, can grow in the UK and establishing it in a paddy field would help to keep weeds to a minimum as few other species thrive in water (aquatic plants aside).

With that in mind, I hacked out a 5m circle with the machete to mark where to start digging. I'm hoping to get a mechanical digger in here but it's so wet that might not be possible. Going to be a big task to dig out by hand but I've done it before so I'm sure I can do it again!

The flow from the spring upstream of this should stop the water from getting too stagnant and the overflow from this will still flow into the ditch where I can pipe it into the lake as planned.

List of tree species at The Old Farm

Species	Latin Name	Approx number	Notes
Ash	Fraxinus excelsior	6	Only young saplings
Alder	Alnus glutinosa	375	Introduced 2014
Apple	Malus domestica	4
Aspen	Populus tremens	50	Introduced 2014
Balsam poplar (we think)	Populus balsamifera	2
Bay	Laurus nobilis	3
Beech	Fagus sylvatica	126	most introduced 2014
Birch	Betula pendula	50
Blackthorn	Prunus spinosa	50	Introduced 2014
Cobnut	Corylus avellana	1	Introduced 2014 (if you count it as a different species to hazel)
Common osier	Osier viminalis	100	Introduced 2014
Copper beech (2014)	Fagus sylvatica	1	Introduced 2014
Crab apple	Malus sylvestris	51
Damson (2014)	Prunus institia	1	Introduced 2014
Elder	Sambucus nigra	15
Eucalyptus	Eucalyptus gunnii	1
Field maple	Acer campestre	100	Introduced 2014
Willow, goat	Salix caprea	3
Gorse	Ulex europaeus	50
Willow, grey	Salix cinerea	30
Hawthorn	Crataegus monogyna	300	200 introduced 2014
Hazel	Corylus avellana	201	200 introduced 2014
Holly	Ilex aquifolium	30
Hornbeam	Carpinus betulus	76	Introduced 2014
Leylandii	Cupressus × leylandii	10
Medlar	Mespilus germanica	1
Oak (Pedunculate)	Quercus robur	150	Possibly some sessile
Pear	Pyrus communis	3	Not sure of exact species
Plum	Prunus domestica	2
Privet	Ligustrum vulgare	1
Rhododendron	Rhododendron ponticum	3	Behaving at the moment
Rowan	Sorbus aucuparia	5
Scots pine	Pinus sylvestris	26
Spindle	Euonymus europaeus	50	Introduced 2014
Sweet chestnut	Castanea sativa	1	more planned for 2015
Sycamore	Acer pseudoplatanus	2
Wild cherry	Prunus avium	125	Introduced 2014
Yew	Taxus baccata	3	One of which is c. 400 years old

That's 38 different species (if you count hazel as two), well over 2,000 trees (if you count them all as trees - they're all taller than I am). There are some further ornamental trees that I've yet to identify and I seem to discover new trees every day tucked inside the hedgerows. Can't wait for most of them to grow bigger!

Ramsons & bees

Whilst at Michelham Priory yesterday (4th May, 2014), I noticed a huge amount of wild garlic, allium ursinum, known as ramsons, flowering around the watermill. Every part of these is edible, but it's the leaves that are easiest to use. Was given permission to dig some up so came home with a good few large clumps. These are easy to separate into individual bulbs and I took the opportunity to plant them in various locations around the property to see where it will thrive. If it doesn't survive, we drove past a huge population along the Sussex country lanes on the way home so there's plenty to harvest, even if it means travelling a little way.

Planted some in sunny spots...

Allium ursinum

and some in shadier places...

Allium ursinum

I've also put some on the ditch banks (see "Springs and Micro-Swales") , others in pretty waterlogged soil & others in dry, sandy soil


I planted one particular batch next to a small goat willow seedling I was given. Whilst clearing the grass away from the chosen site, I heard what sounded like escaping gas. Thinking I had just dislodged a pocket left over from the tree planting, I ignored it and carried on, but the noise grew louder and I soon realised I had stumbled across a nest of bees underground. As far as I can tell, they are a species of bumblebee but wasn't able to get a decent picture on my 'phone.

Willow deer damage

Here is some common osier willow, osier viminalis, that I think has been damaged by a deer. Need to set up the wildlife camera in case they strike again!

Common osier willow deer damage

These were shoots I had pruned from our next door neighbour in our old house. She had asked me to trim the shrub as it was blocking out quite a bit of light. I eventually got bored with cutting each individual stem and cut the entire thing to the ground with a chainsaw. Within a year, the new shoots were up to 3m long and 3cm thick - remarkable stuff and good for weaving/structural work. I've stuck a load of 25cm cuttings into the ground and most of them have taken, the tallest being about 60cm high. The gloves in the picture are Tegera 17 cut resistant gloves, available from Cromwells, they're the best all round gloves I've found so far.

Osier viminalis

We also planted some in an organised plantation in spirals and they seem to be doing very well indeed. As from today, 4 plants (out of 64) had grown taller than the 60cm spirals. We've also planted some yellow willow but it's not doing so well as yet.

Osier viminalis

It's so easy to propagate that I'm not worried about the damage - I'd only stuck the damaged shoots into the ground as had got tired of planting the individual sticks but didn't have enough to build anything meaningful with

Emergency mulching

I had become to suspect that some of my trees had died. After some discussion on various forums, I decided to have a closer look at the victims.

Whilst looking down the tube showed no growth, taking the tube off revealed a small amount of growth from the base of the tree (all alder, so far):

A barely living alder

To try and remedy this, I ripped out all the grass and weeds that were growing around the stem and shading it out. I then laid these down around the stem, making sure to keep the new growth uncovered. The tube is then replaced to hold the mulch in place and marked with a flag so I can keep tabs on it.

Can you see the flag?

Unfortunately, some of the trees that had been showing great growth have been attacked by some beastie and are now looking a bit sorry for themselves. This wild cherry, for example: