Fall is always busy in WNC and this year has been extra busy. This week has been peak fall season, so there is no better time to get in front of new folks. So it's with excitement that I say, come on in! The shop is open! The willow beds are dropping leaves and harvest is coming up in a few weeks, here at the foot of the Appalachians. The weather is currently beautiful, and every day we can pull away to work on the farm is so restorative. I'm looking forward to sharing photos of all those beautiful stalks of future willow groves!
All the bucolic imagery aside, it will be a lot of physical labor to harvest all the main beds but we are starting early this year. Given that spring came in February last season, I can only expect a 2-3 month winter window this harvest. Harvesting early enough in these zones - 6b - 8a - will be important, and planting early before it gets too hot (88 in March???) will also be crucial. Our shop will close cutting sales this year on February 15th. Be sure to plan your willow cuttings delivery accordingly!
Two announcements regarding the shop opening:
This year we have 3 new purpureas available, and they are basketry favorites so be sure to reserve some for your beds. Packing Twine, Dicky Meadows and Green Edna have had a good second year of growth and are starting to fill up their beds with straight, sturdy rods for planting. The quantities will be limited so get yours early!
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| 3 yr old Rubykins in fall |
It has been wonderful to see new people getting into willow for all the reasons, and a lot of new sources of willow are opening up as a result. More visibility on social media has also broadened the market for established willow farms. That is great news for everyone! I have bought from three well-known farms and been impressed with all of them. I hope that someday GWF will also be established and as respected in the field as they are. But willow being willow, you will likely get good results from cuttings from wherever you buy them from.
One of the reasons I thought to start growing willow was there were few farms in this area, but lots of basketmakers and craft schools. Shipping rods is prohibitively expensive. My ultimate goal is to make dried willow available for those folks in the WNC area. That will start this summer, hopefully, but our cuttings sales are also important to us!
Here are 4 good reasons to buy cuttings from Good Willow Farm:
1. If you will be planting in the 6b-8a zone, have clay soil and a fair amount of rain like us, I can guarantee our willow to thrive in your environment.
2. Folks in the 6b-8a zones will have similar weather schedules as we do, so we ship earlier than farms who are further north.
3. We are still small, so we can charge less. No employees, just two little old ladies and a helpful dude with a Kubota who only takes cash to mow the place a few times a year.
4. We are still little old ladies with dreams and ambitions and we will put your money to work to make the farm better and bigger. We've got the rest of the acre to grow into!
Two of my current side gigs* - selling off my fiber art inventory and materials, and selling off my household goods and mom's estate items - have gone public this fall, so I'm going all out to generate enough money to move permanently to the farm. We also need a tractor. Electricity. A shed. The timing is important. We've been doing all this on a shoestring, but there comes a time in every small business that you need to grow quickly.
Thanks for following along these 3+ years. Excited for the next and the next!
*see the links in the sidebar for online sales sites
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