Harvesting willow for basket making. One year coppicing. Harvesting by hand.

hello um in this video I want to show you just a few snippets of our harvest a little heavy [Music] our will harvest started and finished in a flash this year I started cutting back the bad willow it is infested willow this willow had a midge infestation it's showing bumps or galls on the stems and it has been slowly spreading throughout all the proper area varieties over the last few years so I really needed to get a handle on this so I decided to cut it all back grayish and take out a bad bits not all of it is bad but a good bit of it is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and the kids helped out as well oh I'm just sorting through this bundle and then grading it by size mmm here's my barrel all the sticks behind it are just like a waste that I can't do anything about because I'm sorting through the really bad willow the diseased or infested willow it's taking a lot a lot a long long time so I'm just taking out all the bad bits bits with bags in it and stuff in here as you can see [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this is what I'm looking for right usually you'd see them kind of like little bumps and rod has changed direction when they're really black it seems that the eggs have hatched but I'm still taking them out just in case so what I'm really looking for is like green bumps this these have a little bit of black on them but there's still some fresh eggs in there same here so I'm just taking as much as possible ouch even the tiny little ones that might still grow after that was done we had to allow annual event our harvesting weekend we had about 20 people come over and help us harvest our willow over two days I was amazed at the amount of work we managed to do and it meant that we had the bulk of our willow finished coach in those two days has only tiny little patch left here and there that we still need to do [Music] I just want to say thank you to everyone who came out from the bottom of my heart it made a huge huge difference to the harvest this year it made it seem so much fun and painless raised two other years it was a little bit more of a struggle and I'm really really delighted about that also I'm happy to be sharing all the little tricks and knowledge that we have gained over the years here from doing what we do once the we lowest-cost we bring it into the shed to try out drying will take about three four maybe five months depending on the weather so the willow is just left there to stand and dry out in that area shed during that time I would also go through each bundle and grade them besides I have another video about grading so I'll leave the link below [Music] [Music] here are the beds after the harvest empty of willow [Music] [Music] so this is the field that we have fenced off with the little fence this is the bed that I started out with first it's all clear now and these are all the stumps so in this bed as you might know we have left our willow sticks a little bit higher up than usual and they've patches like this patch here that we're still gonna replant I haven't replant it yet and we have the donkeys in here now they just at the moment aren't here but we have the donkeys in here clearing away all the grass and in a few days time you'll see it will be nice and clean clear of any grass we kept a few bundles for cutting some variety that we wanted more they are left in the stream so they don't dry out until we're ready to plant I just love the look of these little stumps they are so full of moss and soon enough that I have little buds coming out of them already this is a long long bed [Music] just love to look at it it's all good it's a deep sense of satisfaction this bed clear desert [Music] little bit of a view from the garden out over the hills some of the harvest standing here some grain hanging up there still and there's a more riddle up there [Music] [Music] now it's time for me to roll up my sleeves and do the grading which means I have to sort all this villo by size so take me a couple of weeks to thanks so much for watching if you have any questions about growing willow or varieties or anything like that just leave a question below the video and you'll see that if you want to learn more about basket making I leave the link to my online videos below the video as well for you to have a look at but for now keep on weaving take care bye

Channel: Hanna Van Aelst

Views: 19,976

Keywords: basket making, basket weaving, making a basket, Hanna van Aelst, how to make a baske, weaving a basket, craft, artist, natural material, willow weaving, Ireland, traditional craft, hand crafted, natural art, basket making for beginners, willow basket weaving, handmade, harvesting, willow harvest, cutting willow, basket maker, Tipperary, willow beds, coppicing, willow coppicing, harvesting by hand, secateurs

Id: N8l1zbWpKIc

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 10 2020