Willow Harvest Time!

It's the time of year again - our willow fence has to be pruned. Willow harvest!

I find it absolutely amazing each year to see how much biomass this fence pushes out; and each year there's more of the really thick ones. I'd say withies, but they are more like little trees themselves!

We got started with the cutting yesterday, and as usual, it will take us a while and a few sessions to get through the whole fence. There is definitely a difference visible already, though:



You can see where we got started on the left side. We're always cutting the fence in several (many!) sessions, as there are still some places where the basic structure is not established completely, and it takes some concentration to not cut the wrong bits off. Especially the lower arches are prone to losses, and it's very easy to cut off all possible replacement shoots before realising that one would have been needed to close the gap... It's also still rather nippy in February, and cold hands do not work so well.

When we planted the fence, we made sure to choose a willow variant that is suitable for basketry, but some of them are also used for willowing wool (as in beating it to fluffiness) - and some will become distaffs. Such as these nice, straight, rather sturdy ones:



They are really long - and rather thick at the bottom end, as you can see here with my trusty measurement fingers:



My index and middle finger side by side are exactly 3 cm wide. That has come in handy so many times!

On that note: If you are ever in the need of figuring out how long or wide something is - and who isn't - it is totally worth it to play around with a ruler and figure out how wide your fingers in various combinations are. I get 3, 5, and approximately 1 cm with my fingers, plus an approximately 20 cm with my hand fully spanned out, and there's a lot of measurement questions that can be covered with these units.