Woodlot – Farming Systems & Approaches

Woodlot

“…you received’t get a lot use from it.”

by Stuart Harrison, Devon, UK

After we have been trying to purchase our small farm, the actual property agent took me on a tour of the pastures and fields. He made a terrific play of the truth that our land was free draining, and the way the rock beneath was “shillet,” a kind of shale within the South West of England that farmers he insisted valued for it’s grass rising potential, mineral availability and lack of standing water in wintertime.

As we handed what I finally named because the “Marsh Subject,” the one discipline on the farm which isn’t on shillet however on a heavy clay, I requested the realtor if a small part of steep woodland off to the north belonged to the farm. “Oh sure, that’s yours as nicely, but it surely’s overgrown, too steep for tractors, and also you received’t get a lot use from it,” he mentioned. Returning to his theme concerning the wondrous worth of the rock beneath many of the farm, he strode on so we may study the farm home earlier than daylight failed. The home was a wreck, rotten home windows, leaking roof, collapsed ceilings, peeling paint and no operating water save an previous lead stand pump within the kitchen, a kitchen which had a crushed earth ground and seemed prefer it was embellished a century earlier, like a lot of the remainder of the home.

Steph and I had travelled many miles, checked out many properties, and have been quick coming to the conclusion that our finances put most farm properties within the U.Okay. nicely past our attain. However one thing about this one rang a chord deep inside us each. It had just about all we have been in search of, nice pasture, a river (The Crooked Oak) operating via the valley, a small orchard, helpful out buildings and a cow shed (albeit in numerous phases of collapse) and a wooden lot. I actually didn’t give that a lot thought to the wooden lot once we put in our sealed bid, however to chop a protracted story quick, we received our farm, and the wooden lot has proved the realtor fallacious time and time once more and is an important half in serving to us to prosper.

As a lot of you’ll be conscious from private expertise, the issue with taking on a property just like the one we bought is that the duty forward of you may be so daunting that you simply simply surprise the place to start out? For what appeared like weeks, and doubtless was months, we simply wandered concerning the place considering “that wants doing, that wants placing proper, that’s an issue, we have to do that, repair that, restore the opposite.” Inertia, I learnt in farming, is your greatest enemy; so overwhelmed was I that I made a decision to start out by simply doing at one job a day, and let windfall care for the remainder.

We took possession one January, and it was chilly. So we wanted to burn stuff to maintain heat as we solely had one functioning fire and we have been at all times weary after lengthy days outdoors. After clearing out the woodshed of some sorry sticks, I took the chainsaw and marched up the hill to our few acres of wooden. Right here at the least was one thing I may make a begin on, at the least we may be heat whereas we made a plan, and somebody instructed me you may burn European Ash even when it’s inexperienced. That wasn’t completely true, wooden is at all times greatest left to season, we season ours for at the least one yr, however longer typically appears higher relying on the species. Nonetheless our inexperienced ash did burn and it stored us heat for that first winter. As quickly as I received there, up on the hill, and made my means into the quiet darkish depths of the wooden lot I may inform this might be someplace I’d come to like. A few hinds scampered off via the gaps within the bushes, birds took flight and though a heavy rain was falling outdoors of the wooden, right here as I watched the deer operating all the way down to the river, it appeared to not penetrate the cover an excessive amount of. Cocooned inside, I set about slicing timber, by likelihood discovered some standing useless wooden, and regardless of my figuring out that it was a haven for all types of over-wintering bugs, I assumed windfall may forgive me my pressing want as I lower it for firewood.

Since this primary encounter, the wooden lot might be my favourite of all locations on the farm. It’s solely a small part, nearly three acres, but it surely packs rather a lot in to that house. For a begin it’s crammed with probably the most great wildlife. Foxes, Badgers, each hedgerow and floor nesting birds, owls, horseshoe bats, roe deer and on events when the climate up on Exmoor is admittedly unhealthy, purple deer. One freezing January morning I took the canine for a stroll at daybreak to marvel on the crystal magnificence of the be-frosted Marsh Subject, returning for breakfast previous the woodland. The canine froze staring into the wooden and standing not 50 toes from me was probably the most great Crimson Deer stag with some thirty of his harem stood behind him. So completely camouflaged amongst the bushes have been the deer, that with out the canine and him elevating his head and antlers to take a look at me I may need walked previous him with out noticing.

Since working it with my horses I’ve observed an enormous range of flowers, rising more and more various because the years progress, wild primroses, bluebells, lesser celandine, wooden anemone and different British woodland species. I’m satisfied the motion of the horses working inside the woods are the important thing to this burgeoning and ever-growing range.

Throughout the woods I repeatedly encounter my two favourite birds, the wren and the gold crest. Each love a hedgerow residence, and it’s at all times a pleasure to see them flitting hither and thither. On the northern fringe of our wooden lot, in a deep slicing, is a primary freeway and I’m constructing a standard hedgerow on the crest of the slicing. I’m unsure why, maybe in some mistaken hope of limiting the hum of the site visitors, or possibly as a result of I really feel the pull of some deep territorial crucial in not having a barrier betwixt my farm and the seething stream of modernity that the circulation of site visitors represents. For no matter purpose it has grow to be one thing of a ardour, however I justify it to myself, and the time it has taken to construct, as a house for these two particular chicken species.

Once I started the hedgerow challenge I knew virtually nothing about why in our a part of England, fencing is uncommon and hedgerows ubiquitous. My up-country pals would declare it’s as a result of we Devon people are peasants, poor, and don’t have anything higher to do with our time however hew and dig. I wish to suppose it’s a mix of custom and frugality. I did ask a just lately retired pal who has accomplished a level in archeology why and the way hedgerows have been constructed, and he needed to admit that after performing some analysis himself, no person actually is aware of, though their are some theories. So by means of an experiment I made a decision to see how I’d do it and commenced by “useless hedging” because the Romans did to maintain their livestock contained. It’s a easy course of, as soon as bushes are felled for firewood I exploit the tops and smaller branches (hereabouts we name it “brash”) piled up and interwoven to create a barrier. Subsequent I dig a shallow ditch on the windward facet of the hedge and throw the earth up in opposition to the decrease components of the lower and layered brash, I would add some animal dung if I’ve a surfeit and this covers the decrease layer of branches of the useless hedge. If I’ve any small saplings out there I’ll pull them up close by and plant them inside the earth dug from the ditch sheltered by the brash. It is a yearly course of and over time for those who proceed to do that quite a lot of issues occur. First the older useless hedging begins to decay and enriches the earth beneath. Then the newer branches forestall bigger herbivores from consuming any younger shoots, which prosper within the shelter of the barrier. Because the years go by, brambles, which I consider as natures barbed wire, may entwine across the branches, saplings will develop up via the hedge, a yearly clearing of the ditch gives extra earth, extra decay, extra development. Inside 5 to seven years you might have a stock-proof barrier. Fairly how stock-proof most likely is determined by the inventory, but it surely’s actually sheep-proof and horse-proof after that point, and even my rabbit hound “Harold” is postpone from penetrating it’s tangled mass. Maybe that is the origin of the hedgerow? To maintain it sound and stock-proof I undertake a 3 to 5 yearly “laying” (slicing upright stems thicker than your thumb 80% of the best way via after which folding them again horizontally in opposition to the road of the hedge) provides density and energy.

We lower from 4 to 5 cords of firewood yearly from late November to the center of February. This fuels our open log fireplace that we’ve got burning in the course of the night hours from late September via to Might. It heats the far finish of our Devon longhouse in-built 1802. I fell the standing timber with a contemporary chainsaw however in a standard model, leaving a “coppiced stool” or by “pollarding.”

Coppicing is an historic system of woodland administration. Bushes are lower near the bottom on a daily cycle. They regrow from dormant buds on the base of the stump (generally known as the stool) to create dense stands of multi-stemmed bushes. The brand new stems develop again quicker due to the massive root system of the unique coppiced tree and supply a sustainable timber provide that permits common harvesting reasonably than slicing older mature bushes down. The most effective time to coppice within the northern hemisphere is late September to early March when bushes are dormant. Frequency is determined by species and the merchandise you need to create, seven to 10 years for hazel rods, fifteen years for candy chestnut fencing posts, and fifteen to twenty 5 years for oak and hornbeam constructing lumber and firewood. I’ve typically sat when resting the horses from work and reasonably macabrely contemplated what number of extra cycles of coppicing for every sort of tree the nice Lord will grant me!

Pollarding is the common slicing of higher branches of a tree to encourage regrowth of dense foliage on the high of a truncated trunk. The lower branches can be utilized for firewood, constructing supplies and different coppice merchandise. Opening up the cover on this means will increase woodland gentle ranges and advantages floor flora whereas making it extra productive for grazing. It was additionally historically used within the Center Ages to outline land boundaries and prevents livestock from killing the tree by steady nibbling on recent shoots, which at the moment are put out of attain. In pollarding a tree you first lower it in winter. Do that as soon as the tree has grown above the peak at which you need to keep the pollard. It’s greatest to do that when the tree is younger, normally 5-15 years previous. Bigger bushes can be topped and established as pollards – success is determined by the age, species and degree of shading. Re-pollarding may be accomplished in winter for firewood and constructing supplies.

Whereas the realtor was right in saying the bottom is simply too steep and unsuitable for tractors, not having any meant that my horses may add one other ability to their repertoire and all have proved their value within the wooden lot. Steep floor and densely grown bushes are usually not with out their challenges to horses, however all of my three Suffolks now work nicely within the wooden lot, particularly since I’ve thinned it out, and all appear to get pleasure from their one to 1 time with me engaged on firewood and constructing materials manufacturing. They’re completely important group members and we’d endure very chilly winter evenings and a denuded financial institution stability with out their noble efforts.

We have now benefited in so some ways from that small part of floor the realtor felt that “…you received’t get a lot use from it.” Greater than as soon as when stacking firewood, constructing a bridge throughout the crooked oak, manufacturing crude constructing lumber, sitting by a roaring fireplace or glorying within the nature present in our wooden lot I’ve smiled to myself and muttered underneath my breath “…you received’t get a lot use from it.”