Delightful Destruction

Paul has gone back to the UK and left behind a trail of devastation in the woods at the bottom of the garden. At a glance it looks like someone has just driven a large earth mover through the trees in much the same way as they do through the rainforests. Well it looks like devastation on the surface, but in reality he’s actually doing the woodland (and me) a big, big favour (unlike work in the rainforests). He’s letting light onto the woodland floor, increasing wildlife numbers and providing large logs ready to chop for firewood.

Hazel

Hazel trees, his main target for the week in the woods, live a lot longer and are far more productive if hacked down every few years. Because of all of the hacking we have been left with three distinct sizes of hazel to work with.
• The large aforementioned trunks for burning.
• Smaller straight branches for making my pea and bean structures.
• And this year I am trying something new with the smaller branches and fine growing tips of the stems.
Generally I make the structures for the plants to grow up then fill in the gaps weaving jute string around the poles. This year I am interlacing the cut branches into the structure for the plants to cling onto. It will be easier to pick the vegetables through the soft stems and everything can be composted at the end of the growing season. There are no sharp edges to the twigs either as they are so young and fresh. Doing this seems to be keeping the dogs off of the beds, so it’s also a natural friendly dog deterrent too.

Benders

Because the hazel rods are so fresh we were able to bend them right over into a hoop to create the pea bed. The structures only need to be three feet high and bending them into shape like this makes them really rigid and void of any dangerous sharp points. If I can find a piece of polythene large enough I’m going to cover the bed and use it as a mini tunnel to get the season off to an early start.
All you need to build any climbing plant structures are
• Long, straight hazel rods
• String
• A pair of loppers
• A pair of scissors for cutting the string (optional as you could use the loppers)
There’s really no hard and fast rule to making the structures. Have something near for the plants to grow up and tie the knot tight enough so the structure won’t fall down in the wind. Cut off any points that you might catch yourself on when harvesting. It’s usually a good idea to have the structures in place before you plant the vegetables, that way there’s no root disturbance.

Video

As well as the laborious work in the woods we did take a bit of time to become US film stars too. My lad loves to video things, and over the last few years he has built up a bit of a collection of short videos that have ended up on Youtube. He normally does something called “Let’s Play” which consists of playing a Gameboy game all the way through with a running commentary. All very entertaining, but he does take time out to film me in the garden when the sun shines.
We have made videos of yours truly working in a greenhouse, talking about slugs, servicing lawnmowers and taking semi hardwood cuttings. I’m far too embarrassed to watch them and it doesn’t help when I get messages typed up in the comments box that say “That was the most boring video I have ever watched” and “I have wasted 10 minutes of my life watching this.”
We make the videos a lot shorter now. My lad now edits them so a majority of the video plays on fast speed. This ensures that if I am doing something like building a raised bed, I can have it done in two minutes as opposed to the usual twenty, giving viewers their lives back.
Our video last week consisted of Paul talking about the carbon storing benefits of burning wood, biochar, which is the burning of charcoal which also locks in carbon and rockdust as an additive in soil that increases fertility. I then appear in the background of the film brandishing a chainsaw and chop down a dead oak branch, in fast forward. Oh, how we laughed.
We have been noticed though, as I mentioned. A woman in the US who hosts a local gardening programme wants to use the videos in her TV programme. All I can think is that we will probably be shown in the blooper reel or how peculiar the Irish are when it comes to gardening.
There’s one thing for sure though. I won’t be watching it.

Tapping Sap from Birch Trees

 

I was down at Liam’s, our local barber last week. Not that my bald patch needed a polish of course -My lads still have their hair and as much as I offer they won’t let me put the pudding basin on their heads and cut around it. I had that style as a boy and it never did me any harm. I suppose things have changed and pudding basin hair styles have long gone along with tank tops and Glam Rock.
Liam always has an interesting project on the go and this week he told me about how he is tapping birch trees for their sap to make wine. Liam has made wine out of a lot of things growing in the hedgerows and as we speak he will be pulling the thorns out of his hands after picking the gorse flowers for his latest batch. When I got home I thought that we should give this tree tapping idea a bit of a go. I am in the habit of videoing (nearly) everything I do in the garden so got my lad onboard as artistic director and camera person for our latest Youtube classic. Tapping Birch Trees for Sap.

Tapping the Birch

We used two different methods of collecting the sap. The first was to make a 45 degree angle incision in the bark with a sterilised chisel (we used tea tree oil as it seemed apt). We could have used any sharp knife as long as it was clean as we didn’t want to be infecting trees with any fungal diseases. The incision was opened up and a small stick was pushed into the gap. Sharpening the points slightly helps the sap run down the stick and into a container, for this we used a jam jar. Liam is a bit more organised and he fed his sap into a fermenting jar via a food grade rubber pipe. This stops flies getting into the liquid and keeps thing clean.
The second method was inspired by Liam’s idea but we substituted the rubber hose for a drinking straw. I drilled a small hole into the bark just large enough for the straw to fit in snugly. Holding the jar in place on the trees wasn’t a problem I have taken to stripping the leaves of all of our dead cordylines down into fibrous strands. They are remarkably strong and tied together make and ideal string substitute.
The sap is used for wine but can also be drunk fresh from the tree, made into tea, used for cooking and boiled down to make something similar to maple syrup, although I think you would need a lot of liquid to do that.
Liam managed to collect about 1-1.5 gallons of liquid from each tree. We weren’t quite as productive. Two hours later we found that after about half a jar the liquid had stopped flowing. This might be because we left it too late in the season to tap into the sap. In late March the sap begins to rise into the tree and the last thing the tree wants is to lose any of it.
The liquid tasted of “tree” but we managed a drink, carefully sipping through the floating dead flies that were swimming around in the jar. Yum Yum.  SEE THE VIDEO

There is something else for Liam to try making wine from that will be doing everyone a big favour. Japanese Knotweed. The scourge of the countryside.

If you can’t beat it –eat it

We’re always looking for new delicacies to eat for free and the latest revelation is about Japanese Knotweed. The young shoots of this invasive plant are edible and can be made into wine, just substitute rhubarb with knotweed. The idea is to pick small asparagus looking tips from the knotweed plant and make them into wine, puddings, again like you would with rhubarb, either a crumble or a fool. Harvesting between now and May is the best time as the shoots are young and tender.
It’s estimated that in the UK alone it would cost £13.5 billion to eradicate the pest and has already cost £70 million to keep it off of the new Olympic site in London so we will have to do our bit to make sure we can keep it in check in Ireland.
Cutting the plant back weakens it and the plants will eventually die off so eating the plant will be a good idea all around. We haven’t tried this yet so if you feel brave and do it before us I would be delighted to know how you get on- check the internet for recipes and health and safety tips..
A couple of words of warning though; Knotweed will grow anywhere, even through concrete, asphalt and most importantly through sprays of herbicide. Make sure you gather it from places where you know the soil is clean and chemical free. The other thing will be to burn anything you don’t eat. The plant can grow from the tiniest piece left on the ground.
I’ll mention this to Liam next time my lads need a haircut, which won’t be long now. Everything’s growing really quickly in this sunshine, apart from my bald patch, that’s just going red.