Catch a wave… of rainy spring days…

1 and 2 yr olds coming back strong as of May 10

And you’re sitting on top of the world! Weeks of rain! And we made it in time. 

Our last cuttings got in the ground last week, just as our planting tool and our backs were giving out. In the end, we got a 12” drill bit/auger and just drilled the last few rows. But we’ve now got 607 stalks planted in the new beds. It took us 6-7 weeks, a few days a week. We were also laying the fabric down during that time - laying, planting, laying, planting and so on.

New stalks after a few days of rain - so far so good. May 10

There’s been some die-off, sadly most of the Packing Twine and Dickie Meadows cuttings  haven’t sprouted. Some other varieties are still struggling. I almost bought another 100 stalks from another farm to fill in those holes in the beds and then decided to just stop here. Knowing your limits is key in your 70s. But overall, a pretty good start to year 2.

After a few days off, we came back and mowed and weeded around  the planting beds and mulched the edges with straw. It looks wonderful, all neat and new. 

5/10 New bed - mulched and mowed 

So the these last few days have been rainy and cool, and we are staying home, happily recovering while the willows grow. And the field grass grows too. We’ll need to get back to mow again for sure. But we’ll also get back to our new-to-us RV and selling off things to get ready to Downsize,Baby!

Below are some shots of the new beds, but also the 1 yr olds and 2 yr olds as they grow  back from February’s harvest. 

3/28 The 1 yr old bed s just starting to revive.

3/28 Most of the fabric is down in the new beds and the first stalks in

3/28 The 2 yr olds are coming back, even the ones in pots. 

This video of a walk around the 1 and 2 yr beds was taken two weeks later, April 10. (Forgive the wonky camera work.I am still learning how to edit) See the photo at the top of the page for that bed one month later.

New Beds going in

The Miyabeana cuttings, coming back to life

4/3-8

For the last 2 weeks, we have been planting the cuttings from our first harvest. It seems frantic, mostly due to the weird weather we are having. Almost no rain, hot  sunny days and cold nights until this week.  I still suspect there will be another cold snap, but since the cuttings are starting to sprout leaves and roots, we don’t have the luxury of waiting. 

The Miyabeanas and Flame cuttings were the most advanced in their spring growth. I got them in first, and they looked peaked for the first few days. We went back to hand-watering and thankfully perked them up enough to survive. Some of the thinner, less robust varieties are turning black - bad sign. I've cut the black parts off where I could, but still not sure they will live. I've been planting them on the edges and trying ad hoc to guess the best layout and location for questionable stalks. What do other willow farmers do when a whole block of new stalks go bad? I had thought of buying some from other growers but it's really too late in the year for purchasing. I guess there will be some holes. :(

We are doing a few things differently from last years plantings. First, to combat the ongoing wind that continues to rip up our landscape fabric,  (regular 30-40mph gusts, everyday) we have put down 1 foot strips of netting on all the fabric edges. Cutting the strips is tedious, and right now we are constantly tripping on them, so those are the downsides. But it holds up to the wind really well! The first test beds did not blow away!  

The other new thing we are doing is using 10” heavy galvanized landscape nails (Amazon :( about $45 for 100)  to hold down the fabric and netting. Very effective, though the nails really need a washer of some kind to hold the fabric without tearing and the netting without slipping. We tried rubber washers but they still allow the netting to slip out, though they are great on the fabric. So right now, the hack of the moment is, wrapping apiece of rope around the nail under the head and using that as a washer.  We did one whole strip with a rope perimeter to try that. Hope it stays - it’s the cheapest solution so far. 

Final change in MO this year: we hacked together a planting tool to preserve our backs. We took two pieces of wood, two of the 10" nails and some bolts and rope and slapped it together. It works, but isn't really strong enough to stand up to hundreds of holes - the nails are bending in the hard clay and then the planting holes are wonky. We have to put in new nails in the tool every new strip we plant, and we are trying to improve it a little each time, but I think we will have to get one forged next year. This year, we are just glad not to be on our knees fighting with the clay. 

Step on the top bar to sink the nails, pull up
with the rope. Inspired by the system used to 
make crop circles 

We are just halfway through, and now that we are getting good rain every few days I am more hopeful that the last stalks will survive. At the outset I wasn’t sure!  And all of our now 2 year old plants are coming back strong, even the ones still in pots! Our now 1 year old bed is coming back now too, though I see we cut some back too short and they are getting caught under the landscape fabric. That's another reminder for next year, cut them a little taller! 

The 1 yr olds, coming back to life. 

Even the potted willows are coming back!

There is so much more work to do this spring! Here's what we had planned before the summer: a storage shed, foundation and install done; a built-up pad for parking an RV (a gravel base with railway timbers supporting it); selling our walk-behind mower and getting a used riding mower; getting some big water totes up with a roof to collect rainwater; and not least, build or buy a catio so we can come live on the farm this summer and close down the house in Hickory. 

However, if our SS checks don't come this month or after, we will have to skip everything above and just move us, the cats and the RV over and shut down all other expenses, including internet. We will hunker down and start a vegetable garden asap. Life will look different, but we and the willow farm will continue. I hope. 

Where did winter go?

 

I am just getting back to this long-form journal of our little pocket farm now starting it’s third year. The area is starting to recover from Helene, and there’s been a lot of personal stuff going on to distract us so I never came in and filled in those months. 

The main thing we did do, and it was a commitment of mine this year, was to get the beds tilled and covered with landscape fabric before the winter rain set in. Guess what, we actually did that! I have the photos to prove it and it looked so nice. Looked. 

Before I could brag on it, the valley got several days of big winds and all of the fabric pulled up and flew around. I have my neighbors video to prove that. 

So back to square one, and just as the cold weather set in. We got all the fabric back, only a little worse for wear, and it was obvious the pins were just not up to the wind in that valley. We didn’t have the time or health to replace it, and I needed to find the right solution to the wind problem. 

And since we are old ladies and the recent extreme cold has us hunkered down at home, we let the field fend for itself til it warmed up. And it has, suddenly, and here we are in a very early spring. So we are back at it, just as I feared, in a kind of panic that we can’t get the new shoots planted in time for spring rainy season - - if we get one!!!

We’ve started harvesting and I posted on IG my very first rods. Kinda paltry in comparison to the lovely bunches (sheaves?) of willow from the more established farms there. Do I have rod envy??? Maybe. 

We seem to have about a week of warm sunny weather ahead, and then hopefully a rainy period. Tomorrow we will go for the third trip to harvest the remaining one year plants, and maybe get a few second year varieties harvested too. The usable shoots are being cut in lengths and put in bags on a chilly patio for the moment. 

Working indoors while the quantities are still small. 
This is Jaune de Falais, the longest rods this yr, 6.5'

60 cuttings from Jaune de Falais, including some 
very slender - see the pencil in the center for size.

  

Miyabeana had the most cuttings - 83! From 11
original plants

Check out the variety of colors in the Miyabeana!

This time, we are going to put down a test length of fabric with 10" nails instead of pins, and a couple of ideas I’ve had to thwart the wind. One idea is to nail down a strip of netting over the edges of the fabric. Netting doesn’t have enough surface area for the wind to catch and might keep the wind from getting under the fabric to pull it up. Another idea is to run a cord taut from nail to nail around the perimeters, giving a continuous pressure at ground level, instead of  every few feet.  Both of those ideas are reasonable in cost for a large area and far less work than massive use of pins or burying all the edges. We’ve got a little time to see how it holds up before we plant. 

There is a benefit to laying down fabric just as we plant, and that is that the willow shoots themselves act as pins across the rows, and adds more resistance to the wind. Our first bed had very few problems with edges being ravelled or pulled up, and I think that’s why that worked. 

I hope we can get this all done with our rickety selves creaking from the cold and inaction.  

Update 3 days later: We've gotten all of one plot harvested, 9 varieties, about 94 plants, still counting and cutting but it looks like we are getting a good rate of reproduction on most plants, only a few did not produce usable rods and those I'll give another season before I dig them up. The one thing I am sure of - my earlier estimates of quantities were way off. I thought we'd have over 1000 new plants, but a more reasonable guess is about 600. Maybe less. Anyway, I am trying to quickly remap the plots because that update means we only need about half the landscape fabric down! I'll need to get more cover crop seeded but so much less work!! Silver Linings, always.