Willow – The Sustainable Smallholding http://sustainablesmallholding.org Permaculture, and Sustainable practices on a Lincolnshire Smallholding Sat, 11 Jul 2015 21:43:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.11 44677425 Chop and Drop in the Coppice http://sustainablesmallholding.org/chop-and-drop-coppice/ http://sustainablesmallholding.org/chop-and-drop-coppice/#comments Tue, 14 Jan 2014 10:02:02 +0000 http://sustainablesmallholding.org/?p=4099 I first came across the term ‘Chop and Drop’ in Geoff Lawton’s Establishing a Food Forest DVD. I reviewed the DVD here. Chop and Drop describes the actions of cutting branch wood from fast growing trees ‘nurse’ trees, and then using that wood to feed soil fungi, in order to help the production trees, planted […]

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Willow Trial Update http://sustainablesmallholding.org/willow-trial-update/ http://sustainablesmallholding.org/willow-trial-update/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:44:11 +0000 http://sustainablesmallholding.org/?p=3730 Earliest Flowering Willow Trial Last year I published a post about My Earliest Flowering Willow, and was surprised to see that the willow that flowered earliest for my was a hybrid called ‘Lapin’. I was up in the Forest Garden again today, ‘weeping’ at the damage done to my willows by rabbits, and noticed that […]

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My Earliest Flowering Willow http://sustainablesmallholding.org/my-earliest-flowering-willow/ http://sustainablesmallholding.org/my-earliest-flowering-willow/#comments Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:24:27 +0000 http://deanom.wordpress.com/?p=1845 Two years ago I was sent some willow cuttings from the research centre at Rothampstead, who keep the National willow collection. The cuttings were for me to use to see which were the earliest flowering willows. My interest is early bee forage. I haveĀ  a lot of violet willow (Salix daphnoides), which is my earliest […]

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Processing Firewood, and thoughts. http://sustainablesmallholding.org/processing-firewood-and-thoughts/ http://sustainablesmallholding.org/processing-firewood-and-thoughts/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:12:04 +0000 http://deanom.wordpress.com/?p=1762 Earlier this week I spent a few hours processing firewood with hand tools. Unlike when using a chainsaw, the hand tools allow time for thinking, and this post is partly about the firewood, and partly about the thoughts that went with the activity. The picture above shows the tree that I worked on. It is […]

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Bees and Willow http://sustainablesmallholding.org/bees-and-willow/ http://sustainablesmallholding.org/bees-and-willow/#respond Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:04:25 +0000 http://deanom.wordpress.com/?p=1247 I always relax a little when my willow starts to flower, as it marks the beginning of decent quantities of nectar and pollen for my bees. I have quite a few varieties of willow, and the first to flower here is Salix daphnoides, the violet willow. Not only does it flower early, but the shoots […]

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