Willow harvest delayed by more snow

Finally last week-end most of the snow had disappeared in the field and we could begin this year's willow harvest.
We managed to harvest about 20% of the rods. Monday and Tuesday I cut a bit more, finished bundeling the rods in the field. By Tuesday  the field was dry enough for me to drive the lawn tractor with my little wagon behind to pick the budles up and take them home.

Then Wednesday morning I woke up to about 10 cm of snow!! And as if that was not enough, it continued on and off all day and by night we have double of that with some drifts as deep as 40 cm - as in the driveway :-)

The next week or so will be cold but sunny and I can only wait..........till it is all gone again - and hope........that I will have time enough to harvest all the willow before it starts growing again.

The bundles look very nice in the snow though and stacked behind the barn waiting to be sorted in bundles with different sizes.

If there is anything good about the snow at this time of the year - yes, they say it is spring and we have changed to "Daylight savings time" - it is the fact that I can let the dogs out without  getting two very dirty, mud dragging boys in the house. Oh well, I tried!!

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Willow harvest and the beginning of a new season

I finished harvesting a couple of weeks ago and I sorted the willow for different purposes.

The rods for drying for future weaving projects are sorted and bundled to be placed in the barn for drying over the next few months.

The large rods to be used for living willow projects - as the woven fence in the picture here and my various trees - were wrapped in black plastic and stored in the shade on the North side of the barn to prevent them from drying out and make sure they stay dormant. More to come soon about my workshops and the woven fence (also called a fedge).

Then, as I prepared for my workshops , I placed the bundles in buckets with their feet in water - still in the shade - Here are some of the Salix koriyanagi 'Rubykins', the rods up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) long, no branching and perfect for making the Harlequin tree.

As the majority of my willows were planted last spring, and most willow varieties don't grow the long, unbranched rods the first year, I had a big pile of branches that were not good for my above uses. I will play with it a bit to find use for some of it and maybe part of it will end up on a bonfire.

Spring is here and I am so pleased to see that the willow in the field is starting to show new growth. In a few weeks I will be posting photos from the field with beautiful colours. Even the very new and small shoots look quite different on the different varieties.          

The potted trees that i have at the front door started to leaf out a couple of weeks ago and by now they look like this. The wine red stems of Salix x acutifolia get a greyish-white bloom during their second year and after that they turn almost black. Very interesting and beautiful variety. It is great for living willow projects, but not very good for weaving as it is not very flexible.

Words and photos by Lene Rasmussen,Willows.

Harvest

Willow rods are harvested during the plant's dormancy, between November and April during which time the bark sits tight on the rods.
When you coppice (cut off close to the ground) the willow plants they will throw long, straight rods without any branching, ideal for weaving and other willow works. Here is my first row of Salix 'Americana' with one year old rods after it's second year in the field.

I just harvested those yesterday and they delivered between 5 and 21 rods per plant, each rod being 120-180 cm in length.

When the willows are planted close together the shoots are competing for the sun and thus forced upwards. The first year after planting in the spring the number of shoots are limited and often they are quite branched too - that differs a lot depending of the variety. Over the next few years the rods will increase in both number and length and there will typically be less branching as well.

You can see the base of some of my 'Americana' here. Next year I should be able to harvest more and longer rods.

This year I cut my willows by hand with shears as I only have a small field. Now it looks like this. I'll be looking out for new shoots soon!!
More to come about my harvest soon!

Winter Harvest

Freezing cold winters often with thick covers of snow doesn't seem to be the time to harvest any crop - but we actually have a few exemptions.........

Those of you who grow kale or Brussels sprouts know that these brassicas will turn sweeter, less bitter, and more aromatic after a little frost - and how nice it is to be able to pick a little "green" long after the growing season is over.

Corn - I would never have thought a farmer to harvest corn in winter. I don't know the reason, if it was planned to be or not, but a couple of weeks ago - when we had a few days without any snow - a farmer down the road from us harvested corn. I drove by this dead looking field and there he was with his big machine and a huge trailer filled with small golden-yellow kernels!

This Saturday we went to the Niagara Icewine Festival in Jordan. Yes, the shelves are made of pure ice.

Now, living close to the Niagara Wine Country, winter harvest of grapes for the production of icewine is known to more people. The first icewine (eiswein in German) was produced a couple of centuries ago when a German grape farmer was surprised by an early frost. As he didn't want to waste the grapes, he pressed the juice from the frozen grapes and the resulting wine was icewine.

Many of Niagara's wineries now produce icewine and for the past few years we have enjoyed visiting one of the Niagara Icewine Festival events: The Twenty Valley Icewine Bar in the Jordan Village. Saturday was extremely cold and the people serving samples at the bar - made of a gigantic slab of ice - were in an admirably good mood considering their frozen hands and feet.Some of them danced to keep warm - between pouring glasses full of sweet samples - to the beats from the live entertainment.

There were beautiful ice sculptures - like this table. We, as other people, used to enjoy standing at these tables, putting our glass down, enjoy some soup, or just talk; but this year it was just too cold and the tables were standing there as pretty statues.

Even the Queen was there (Winter Queen, Snow Queen, Ice Queen - what do you call her?) in her "nice and cozy chair" as she called her throne with the jester at her side.

In my own field I will be harvesting willow as soon as the snow allows me to do so.
Willow rods to be used for weaving are harvested while the plants are dormant, from November to March. The picture is taken in December and right now we have even more snow. As the rods are cut close to the ground, I have to wait till at least some of it has melted.
This will be my first harvest from the field and I am quite excited about it. Only one of my varieties will be dried to be used for weaving later on, but I'll tell you more at "harvesting time" in a separate post.