Sallygardens Smallholding

A Plan for the Woodland

The oak wood plantation that came with our house is nearing ten years old and as part of the forestry scheme it was planted under we are now officially required to submit a management plan. Getting our medium and long term aims down on paper is something we wanted to do anyway and so to receive formal notification was a great motivator to get moving.

Having done some research on various management techniques the one that appealed to us the most was a continuous cover 'close to nature' approach. There are only two or three professional foresters actively practicing this technique in Ireland. We enlisted the help of forester Paddy Purser and rather than just ticking the boxes on the required official forms he agreed to come and spend a whole day with us and a friend in our woods training us in the first steps of 'close to nature' silviculture.

Although it piddled rain for the duration we were enthralled and hardly noticed being soaked to the skin. Paddy taught us how to prune, how much to prune and what to prune. He showed us how to select 'frame trees' which are the ones we will favour in the long term for the timber trade. We marked the frame trees with yellow tape, we also marked special interest trees with blue tape and in a few years time others will be marked with red tape for thinning. We identified small areas of poor quality trees that could be cleared to allow naturally germinating saplings grow and thrive, thus encouraging natural regeneration and increasing the biodiversity of the plantation. In our woods there are plenty of ash and sycamore saplings just waiting for a spot of sunlight to race up through the canopy. By allowing more species to grow the crop becomes more like nature intended and is consequently resilient to disease and natural disasters such as storms which can wipe out vast tracts of forests of a uniform age.

We had read up about so many of these practices and had even been on a brilliant 'close to nature' morning workshop but we still didn't have the confidence to get out there with our saws and just 'do it' in our own woods. After our day with Paddy we are now really excited about taking the woodland to heart, reading it's changes season to season and deciding how to manage it on the smaller scale. Our woodlands are full of possibilities for the future and we are now eager to take up the role of it's custodians. It will never be clear felled like much of the forestry in the landscape which apart from looking like a nuclear bomb has landed in the vicinity, also causes devastation to the ecosystem and the fundamental soil structure. Even when a mature tree is selected for felling from a continuous cover woodland the result of it's removal  is hardly noticeable.

On a larger scale Paddy recommended further species we could introduce to add more diversification but also to meet the requirements we have in the medium term as a family ; Cherry, Walnut and Sweet Chestnut for fruit, nuts and colour, Noble Fir for growing our own christmas trees, Holly for wildlife and decorative berries, Scots Pine because it's Dan's favourite tree and Ash for a fast growing firewood. Much of the prunings we are taking now and over the years are big enough to use as firewood and so we are immediately self sufficient in terms of our central heating with plenty of surplus; I've already bartered a wheelbarrow full of firewood in return for an evenings babysitting.  The prunings can also be used to make charcoal or greenwood house and garden furniture. When the time for thinning or extraction of faster growing trees comes we hope to have our own low impact working horse in the woodlands to work alongside the family and so avoid the need to contract in large scale high impact diesel fueled machinery. As we work through the decades the woodland will remain a tranquil and enjoyable place for all creatures, human and otherwise!

When we first moved here we thought the woodlands would just be like an extension of our garden, a place of amenity and a wildlife haven. Now we understand it's potential for being so much more whilst still maintaining it's initial appeal and functions.

Working Horses on the Farm

A while ago a course in the organic centre brochure caught my eye 'Working With Horses'. I began to mull over the benefits of having a working horse on the smallholding, which was quite difficult as I had very limited 'horsey' knowledge ie absolutely no idea what a working horse  could actually be used for on a farm. It's funny, but sometimes when something crops up for the first time in my life it seems to keep coming up, when I've never thought about it before. No sooner had I started thinking about this previously unvisited subject in my head, I saw an article in Sustainability magazine about ... working horses. I devoured the article within minutes and read it over again and again. The facts and figures were fascinating. I got in touch with Sandra Schmid, the author, and she painted a realistic picture of the kinds of job a cob horse or donkey might be able to help with.

A horse would certainly fit in well with our long term plans for the woodland.  There are other jobs a horse could be used for too ... preparing vegetable beds, ploughing and planting areas in which to grow grain and fodder to feed the horse itself and our other livestock, perhaps even to go shopping in our local village. The benefits of using a horse instead of the car for short trips, or a tractor, is that we can (with it's help) grow it's fuel  requirements in the field, what's more the 'emissions' can be composted and recycled in the veg garden! On top of that a horse can replicate itself and make more horses for you to use or sell, I've not come across a vehicle that can do that yet.

In the meantime Dan went on the working with horses course and immediately became enamoured with the whole idea too, which was exactly why I sent him on the course rather than myself!

Jim Cronin and his son teaching the 'Working With Horses'  course at the Organic Centre, Rossinver

Of course there are expenses to consider; feed, housing, fencing, shoes, tackle, carts and vets bills. We will be doing some maths and thinking about the pros and cons, then we'll probably throw that piece of paper out the window and fall in love with some lovely little Irish cob and that'll be that.

Woodland Management

When we bought this Irish farmhouse we were very lucky because a thirteen acre Oak, Sycamore and Alder woodland was part of the package. The trees are now almost ten years old and have reached a height of up to six meters. The canopy has begun to close over and although the woodland is very young it's already a wonderful place to wander. There are plenty of native wild plants growing there including violet, primrose, wild raspberry and St Johns Wort. Last year I introduced some wild garlic, the white flowers of which are great in a salad. The bird life is abundant, the chorus sometimes deafening!

Having a woodland to get lost  run around in and watch wildlife is all very well, but what exactly did we take on when we signed and agreed to carry on the commitment of this plantation which was initially funded by a government scheme? The aim is to maintain this as a wooded area in a sustainable way. In a nutshell, if a tree is felled in the future, another should be planted to take its place. We hope to take it much further than that in terms of being eco-sensitive.

We have been reading some great literature and talking to some incredibly inspiring people who are finely tuned into forest wisdom, and who carry forward the knowledge of some individuals with a legendary understanding of natures way. Last month we were lucky enough to have the founder of Crann, Jan Alexander, wander through our woods with us, and begin to teach us about how to spot a commercially viable tree, and how to prune these 'frame' trees. It was windy, cold and lashing rain but the three of us wandered happily sawing off various branches under expert supervision, and peering upwards into various canopies until we were all soaked to the skin.  Jan's 'close to nature' approach to woodland management had us both enthralled.

She talked about companion planting, and how in our particular case, planting alder saplings around the base of some frame oak trees would naturally encourage them to grow at a much faster rate. Did you know that alder roots contain nitrogen fixing nodules, so they actively improve the soil? Well I didn't. This is an important fact as oak, which is what we are growing, drains the soil of nutrients. Hence was our first lesson in silviculture!

It has whetted our appetite for more. We are reading up on all sorts of trees and close to nature management techniques, and hope to diversify our woodland over the years with a range of species. Perhaps some areas will be coppiced to provide green wood suitable for making furniture. I have an inkling to try making chairs from green wood at some point in my life! Other areas may be planted up, or coppiced on a long rotation to provide us with endless firewood, and yet other areas will be managed to produce viable commercial timber crops in the long term future ... perhaps in our children's or grandchildren's lifetime.

I plan to share what we learn as we begin to actively manage our woodland so watch this space and/or click on the new Woodland category. Timber! In the meantime this is a book Jan recommended that we invest in so it has been added to my ever growing wish list.