Can I make all usual structures with just wood from my small woodland?

[Qwercus]

No, I wrote that I volunteered somewhere that coppice workers would come by and give advice here and there. I never said anything about working as a hedge layer.


You just mention 20-30% would be lost so why would it be ludicrous to go over by a bit. Someone else said it would take in the thousands to cover 2 acres. Thousands -20 to 30 loss sounds like 10k would be a fair figure.


Why are you making out like that is such a ridiculous thing? My neighbour told me he got them for free from co-op so it isn't such a fantastical leap to think other high street shops might give them away. I have also heard people picking them up over the years like this.

I have gotten cardboard boxes many times when moving by asking for them at shops so why would I be led to think pallets would be different?

Basket Willows, usually called Osiers or Withies are really quite common. They were planted in riverside beds when almost every town and village had a resident Basketmaker. The trade has declined since the age of plastic and the beds have fallen into disuse or often been grubbed out, however some of the original stools have grown into large trees and can be found in hedges or wetland places.
They have a longer and narrower leaf than the common willow. If you know how to identify them cuttings can usually be obtained for free.
Short rods about a foot long pushed well into the damp ground will take root, even the least green-fingered person can't go wrong.
Now is the time to plant and you should get a harvestable crop after three years.
Then you can build your Wattle Hut.

 

[jetsetwilly]

About pallets:
Some pallets are better than others if you want to cut them or burn them:
https://www.universalpallets.com/2018/01/ultimate-guide-pallet-markings/

Pallets are reusable packaging, but are often discarded esp if damaged, or in places where their value isn't important. As has been said, driving your van (you mentioned a van) round some industrial estates will soon fill it up with pallets for free. We don't know where you are so can't suggest any. IME suburban skips are also good, or community forums - is your mum on a residential facebook group for instance?

About planting willows (of which I know nothing):

Basic advice: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/advice/how-to-plant/
This site looks useful and has numbers: https://www.musgrovewillows.co.uk/blog/planting-willow-cuttings/

About tree species - if you can't post a picture of at least a leaf, then I think you might need to do your own identifying. 'Round and ribbed' isn't a lot for us to go on, but if you have a book to hand then it's easy enough to do it yourself usually. Something like this. They will focus on leaves, fruit, habit (the shape of the tree) and bark usually.

 

[dickm]

At our last house, I was growing an apricot up the side wall of the garage, but decided to enlarge the garage, so moved the apricot out into the garden. Supported it with a willow stake. The apricot died, but the willow flourished.
(and as an aside, we had the best crop of apricots we've ever achieved this year. In an unheated Aberdeenshire greenhouse)

 

[Plwm]

We planned approx 300 willows for a short rotation coppice about 8 years ago to supplementothe firewood. Probably paid around £100 or so, 3 different hybrid varieties in case of disease. They were about 30cm long withy's (rods) - used a thick metal bar pushed into the ground to create the hole to put the withy in. Done in a couple of hours, planted in Spring approx 50cm apart in double rows, 1m between each double row.
Left them to grow for a year, the following spring all cut down to 12" or so. Each year after we harvest 1/4 of them in succession for firewood, use some of the too thin branches for woven edges to paths etc. We get roughly 1-4" thick logs.... Gives you an idea of what you could expect.
Take your cuttings in early spring before the leaves come out and strim the ground cover back so less competition for nutrients.

Pallets - as others have said, go to a farm supply shop. I've done it many times to get free pallets they don't want to make compost bins, chicken houses, log stores etc.
If on wet ground put a few inches of gravel down first so they have less chance of rotting.

Happy to answer questions but I feel the advice you seek may be better off posted in a bushcraft forum? - there is a UK bushcraft website (Google for it), probably UK Bushcraft?

Hope that helps....

 

[woodlearner9810182]

We planned approx 300 willows for a short rotation coppice about 8 years ago to supplementothe firewood. Probably paid around £100 or so, 3 different hybrid varieties in case of disease. They were about 30cm long withy's (rods) - used a thick metal bar pushed into the ground to create the hole to put the withy in. Done in a couple of hours, planted in Spring approx 50cm apart in double rows, 1m between each double row.
Left them to grow for a year, the following spring all cut down to 12" or so. Each year after we harvest 1/4 of them in succession for firewood, use some of the too thin branches for woven edges to paths etc. We get roughly 1-4" thick logs.... Gives you an idea of what you could expect.
Take your cuttings in early spring before the leaves come out and strim the ground cover back so less competition for nutrients.

Pallets - as others have said, go to a farm supply shop. I've done it many times to get free pallets they don't want to make compost bins, chicken houses, log stores etc.
If on wet ground put a few inches of gravel down first so they have less chance of rotting.

Happy to answer questions but I feel the advice you seek may be better off posted in a bushcraft forum? - there is a UK bushcraft website (Google for it), probably UK Bushcraft?

Hope that helps....

Thanks, yes I joined there as well asking the same.

Yorkshire willows looks way cheaper and only £14 for 100! I realized looking on the site that those mentioned earlier on offer for 10k of them you can buy much smaller amounts but for comparable price.

I can buy a couple of hundred of these for not great price and 'suck it and see'.

For compost (humanure and everything else) bin I am currently using a few old tyres. I picked over a dozen up that had been fly tipped up the road thinking they will be very useful but have been struggling to find things to use them for and just piled at the side and had been somewhat regretful now I am left with them doing nothing. The bloke whose land I think they had been tipped on was very pleased for me to take them I think as he was otherwise going to get the council to take them.

Still open to ideas of how I can use the rest. This 1st compost is filling fast so if nothing else I will just keep using them for that in several stacks.

Do willows also appreciate compost? Great thing about composting for trees I was thinking is that you don't have the same sanitary worries using humanure like you would if growing vege.

For willow growing is seems the size you mention of a few inches thick is great also for making timber structures. Not to small and not to big to work with easily for one person. That and of course the smaller bendy ones. Seems they are a very versatile item to have and wonderful for self-sufficiency.

 

[woodlearner9810182]

About pallets:
Some pallets are better than others if you want to cut them or burn them:
https://www.universalpallets.com/2018/01/ultimate-guide-pallet-markings/

Pallets are reusable packaging, but are often discarded esp if damaged, or in places where their value isn't important. As has been said, driving your van (you mentioned a van) round some industrial estates will soon fill it up with pallets for free. We don't know where you are so can't suggest any. IME suburban skips are also good, or community forums - is your mum on a residential facebook group for instance?

About planting willows (of which I know nothing):

Basic advice: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/advice/how-to-plant/
This site looks useful and has numbers: https://www.musgrovewillows.co.uk/blog/planting-willow-cuttings/

About tree species - if you can't post a picture of at least a leaf, then I think you might need to do your own identifying. 'Round and ribbed' isn't a lot for us to go on, but if you have a book to hand then it's easy enough to do it yourself usually. Something like this. They will focus on leaves, fruit, habit (the shape of the tree) and bark usually.

I can post pictures at some point, but don't have the camera yet. Plan to go back to pick up supplies soon. I was thinking maybe if there was a site with common uk trees I could find the ones that match that way. Looking in the little wooded area there were some shoots on the trees that look remarkably like willow, and also bendy. How funny would that be. They also have the little droopy things, catkins, on some of them? I guess they aren't willow but just the shoots look a bit like them.

 

[jetsetwilly]

Willow is a water margin tree and pretty common, but there are other trees that have catkins. This time of year it might be hazel or alder

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/12/which-trees-have-catkins-and-how-to-tell-them-apart/
https://woodlandclassroom.com/which...f you're seeing these,and birch (Betula spp.)

The most convenient tree identification method is a smartphone app (eg TreeID, plantnet, picturethis etc), which I understand you have no access to? A book is probably the next easiest. Don't know of any browser-based apps though you might be able to use Google Lens (but again you'd need a photo).

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/how-to-identify-trees/

 

[Plwm]

"Still open to ideas of how I can use the rest. This 1st compost is filling fast so if nothing else I will just keep using them for that in several stacks"

If the area you want to make a camp is boggy how about a grid of tyres filled with gravel and a inch or so on top to provide a dry platform?

Couple of tyres on top of each other, fill with compost to plant whatever veg in = well drained planter...

If it was me I'd get rid of the tyres, wouldn't want my woodland looking like a landfill....

 

[AJB Temple]

No, I wrote that I volunteered somewhere that coppice workers would come by and give advice here and there. I never said anything about working as a hedge layer.


You just mention 20-30% would be lost so why would it be ludicrous to go over by a bit. Someone else said it would take in the thousands to cover 2 acres. Thousands -20 to 30 loss sounds like 10k would be a fair figure.


Why are you making out like that is such a ridiculous thing? My neighbour told me he got them for free from co-op so it isn't such a fantastical leap to think other high street shops might give them away. I have also heard people picking them up over the years like this.

I have gotten cardboard boxes many times when moving by asking for them at shops so why would I be led to think pallets would be different?

10,000 whips is insane. Think about it. You want a screen (you said) not a willow jungle. By the way, they will not make a screen unless you coppice and weave them. Think 6 to 10 years before you get any real thickness. Willow is deciduous so will not screen much during the winter, and it creates a LOT of leaf fall. It will also deplete the soil really rapidly and choke out anything else nearby. I've planted wiillows and made woven willow screens and I think you are barking up the wrong tree. We have two huge willows and they not only drop leaves but also long branch strands everywhere. Parts die off readily if light shielded by other trees.

What is your screen supposed to achieve? If it is privacy then bear in mimd that willow is a tree and if you let it grow you will have a 20ft trunk with no screening at all. You will be forced to cull a lot as they will compete with each other.

If you want a screen that will provide privacy and some winter wind shielding, then buy hornbeam (not beech) bare rooted plants. They will be in season as bare roots in around February (maybe earlier in some parts). Plant in double rows to get thickness. They hold their brown leaves through winter - not as much as beech - and will tolerate very wet conditions (unlike beech). You can get them to keep their branches right down to the ground if clipped as hedges and grow them to a considerable height if you wish. Hornbean from small bare roots will make a thick 2-3m tall hedge in 6 years easily. You will need to protect all of them with spirals or the rabbits and deer will consume the lot.

They come on pallets - so that solves that one for you as well!

Pallets are handled by fork lift trucks. Now ask yourself how may fork lift trucks you see in shops or the high street. How can you not know this? Cardboard boxes - rather different.

I never thought you were a bot but I still think there is something very odd here.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I never thought you were a bot but I still think there is something very odd here.

I've got to agree with you there because the longer this thread goes on the weirder or more off the wall it seems to get. In fact, that's the main reason I look in now, i.e., to see what fresh weirdness has developed since my last visit. Slainte.

 

[TomGW]

There's plenty of you tube videos on using whole pallets to build sheds. I would suggest that tyres could be used as a base to lift the pallet floor off the wet ground. This would certainly be the quickest route to getting a rudimentary shelter built.

 

[woodlearner9810182]

Willow is a water margin tree and pretty common, but there are other trees that have catkins. This time of year it might be hazel or alder

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/12/which-trees-have-catkins-and-how-to-tell-them-apart/
https://woodlandclassroom.com/which-trees-have-catkins/#:~:text=If you're seeing these,and birch (Betula spp.)

The most convenient tree identification method is a smartphone app (eg TreeID, plantnet, picturethis etc), which I understand you have no access to? A book is probably the next easiest. Don't know of any browser-based apps though you might be able to use Google Lens (but again you'd need a photo).

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/how-to-identify-trees/

Well I brought the camera last night then suddenly realized today I forgot the charger.

I might be able to rig it to charge from my van leisure battery though. Will see when I get some time.

 

[woodlearner9810182]

"Still open to ideas of how I can use the rest. This 1st compost is filling fast so if nothing else I will just keep using them for that in several stacks"

If the area you want to make a camp is boggy how about a grid of tyres filled with gravel and a inch or so on top to provide a dry platform?

Couple of tyres on top of each other, fill with compost to plant whatever veg in = well drained planter...

If it was me I'd get rid of the tyres, wouldn't want my woodland looking like a landfill....

How would the gravel stay on top of the tyres? If you mean fill the tyres with gravel that would take a lot.

My neighbour was giving me some ideas, as he is a dab hand at carpentry, for making a solid base. His suggestions were just as stated though, carpentry based rather than woodworking.

He scoffed when I talked about doing things manually saying it is 'not necessary'. He was more thinking of the most effecient way rather than the craft and process of working with hand tools, which is more my interest.

Still got some good general ideas though.

Since the discussion I have been thinking about neolithic pile dwellings. Seems like a good fit for my purposes.

I have been using cordage from brambles. I know people say there are better things to use but brambles are in abundance on my land and from all the times they have tripped me up I know their strength and stringy qualities so using what I have. The thorns are easily removed by running the sickle down them.

With the pile dwellings they use cordage too from pictures but I am not clear how they are able to frame everything together with the cordage. Can anyone enlighten me? The gallery here has some good images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_pile_dwellings_around_the_Alps

If you look at this picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehi...ile:Pfahlbau_Rekonstruktion_Museum_SH_002.jpg

It looks like they use crotches of trees for the main beams. How though would they make the platform on the floor as it appears the floor is being help up on the piles but how to the piles attach to the beams.

This is what generally has left me at a loss so far, how to make joints butt against one another only using cordage.

Oh btw I have come back with more tools now including several saws, a handaxe, can't remember others but quite a few more. So not strictly tied to that but using cordage or doing everything thing the neolithic way now but that looks like a very effective and direct way to join things together.

I am also finding this a very good history lesson trying the oldest and most primitive first and moving up the ladder if a certain style is more challenging than to be worth the effort. Since I have so much potential cordage though it seems a good idea to make use of it as probably much quicker to do that than chisel joints like mortis and tenon. Maybe won't last as long but for now doesn't have to.

 

[woodlearner9810182]

10,000 whips is insane.

Yes, having talked to my mum she said the same and talked me out of it. I noticed the price is similar even for smaller batches of that same super willow breed so I plan to just get 200 to start and then get more after if I want.

I have since visited her and took back a few cuttings from her weeping and curly willows which I was planting today.

Think about it. You want a screen (you said) not a willow jungle. By the way, they will not make a screen unless you coppice and weave them. Think 6 to 10 years before you get any real thickness. Willow is deciduous so will not screen much during the winter, and it creates a LOT of leaf fall. It will also deplete the soil really rapidly and choke out anything else nearby. I've planted wiillows and made woven willow screens and I think you are barking up the wrong tree. We have two huge willows and they not only drop leaves but also long branch strands everywhere. Parts die off readily if light shielded by other trees.

I thought leaves and other debris from dead wood was good not bad as it forms compost?

Hmm I didn't know that weaving was the main viable way for willows. The only real reason I got set on willows was first that people said this is the ideal species for boggy land and second the speed of growth thinking the privacy screen would be achieved quickest with them.

What is your screen supposed to achieve? If it is privacy then bear in mimVd that willow is a tree and if you let it grow you will have a 20ft trunk with no screening at all. You will be forced to cull a lot as they will compete with each other.

If you want a screen that will provide privacy and some winter wind shielding, then buy hornbeam (not beech) bare rooted plants.

Hmm, how quick will hornbeam grow in comparison to willow?

Willow is still on the table for 'biofuel' due to quick growth. That is a big plus for self-sufficiency to have a fast regenerating fuel source. Though also being able to weave to make structures is a nice bonus too as well as, it seems, thick logs to make more lean to type shelters as well. So building in general.

Perhaps a band of the hornbeam, as you say, for privacy and willow for other reasons stated above. If hornbeam takes like 5+ years to reach paydirt that seems like an age if so even the lackluster willow seems a better idea since I read they can grow 4 meters in a year. Even if they are wire thin in winter with enough that will surely be better than some hornbeam if it were still only a couple inches in that time.

They will be in season as bare roots in around February (maybe earlier in some parts). Plant in double rows to get thickness. They hold their brown leaves through winter - not as much as beech - and will tolerate very wet conditions (unlike beech). You can get them to keep their branches right down to the ground if clipped as hedges and grow them to a considerable height if you wish. Hornbean from small bare roots will make a thick 2-3m tall hedge in 6 years easily.

This does sound appealing, depending on how quickly they would provide their benefits.

They come on pallets - so that solves that one for you as well!

Pallets are handled by fork lift trucks. Now ask yourself how may fork lift trucks you see in shops or the high street. How can you not know this? Cardboard boxes - rather different.

Forklifts are out the back of high street stores, that is not a controversial thing. There were pallets in the places I asked they just wouldn't give them away so isn't that they don't have them as you are implying.

 

[woodlearner9810182]

There's plenty of you tube videos on using whole pallets to build sheds. I would suggest that tyres could be used as a base to lift the pallet floor off the wet ground. This would certainly be the quickest route to getting a rudimentary shelter built.

Aye!

Now that might be a valid use for them!

Pallets idea is worthless since I am unable to get my hands on any.

Now I have more tools I am favouring taking the wood from my own trees again especially since I now plan to replant with fast growing willow. Some are up to 30-50ft tall or so, yet not that thick to be unwieldy. Still thigh thickness or less. Of course that is not to say to be cavalier about cutting them down.

 

[Qwercus]

Oops. it is a bit long, I do tend to waffle but here it is.

I have a small woodland of close to 1 acre and a couple more of open land.

I came onto the land with just a couple of tools including a chisel and hammer.

Of course I will intend to grow and fill out the arsenal a bit but I am interested most in the simplest ways of creating as possible, going back to time honored traditions - specifically to the uk if applicable. With that in mind I am thinking of what tools I could also make from the wood with just what I have already, just bootstrapping from the environment.

I will resort to sourcing things from the local hardware yard only as a last resort and would like to exhaust the self sustainable ideas first.

For the moment I would like to make a workshop with just a basic worktop and frame for shelter. I would either use a tarp to cover or sod and other stuff gathered from the ground to make a roof.

I know you will want to know what type of wood is in the woodland but to be honest I haven't got a clue! I also don't have a camera handy right now to take any images of the wood for you to get a better idea.

I know it is generally considered a 'nono' to work on green wood but that is mostly for longevity concerns isn't it? If I go into accepting the structures may not last for long then can I just continue on regardless and replace as they might get dilapidated?

All I can say is the general thickness and size of the trees which are about thigh thickness and maybe 20-30ft high. If you could offer me things to look for on the trees to be able to come back to you to help identify I could do that.

I would also like to be able to do everything with just the chisel and hammer as well as tools I could make from those, and perhaps saws once I get them but won't have them for a while. My mother should be coming with other tools when she comes to visit and there are a lot of old tools there. I can sharpen them myself can't I?

Better to recycle old tools, which I think had better build quality than today's stuff? They are tools handed down from my grandfather so probably around 1950s. My family are great collectors so loads of stuff I could put to use which had just been sitting around in the garage but they are definitely going to be blunt and require some tlc.

Besides the lack of tools I would be interested in doing joinery rather than using screws just to keep everything as self sustainable as possible with materials I have on the land.

So is that feasible? I don't care if it might take longer this way it is about the satisfaction of doing things in a self-sufficient manner. For practical reasons though it will be important to get the workshop up within a reasonable time to be able to use it to make other stuff!

I had a quick look and mortise and tenon joints look doable?

I can see myself being able to make a frame for a shelter like that but to make a flat or kind of flat worktop how would I do that? Could I just manually chisel away on the trunks until I got them pretty flat place them side by side?

I recommend you read "The Man Who Panted Trees" by Jean Giono. It's a short story about a Shepherd who, over the course of a long lifetime planted trees on the barren uplands of southern France.
The planting was done at his own time and expense and resulted in an entire forest which created a micro-climate, restoring fertility to a desolate area.
The book is actually a work of fiction, written in the 1950s but somehow you believe it just could be true. If you can't find one online your local Library will order it for you.
An acre is a small starting place but you've got all of Wales ahead of you!
Good Luck.

 

[Jester129]

I will repeat my earlier post: look on Facebook Marketplace, search for 'free wood/pallets'. If you have a location (i.e. Postcode nearby) you WILL find them.

 

[Tris]

Try to get hold of Ben Law if you can. Probably possible through his website or via the Permaculture magazine.
Many years back I spent about 6 months part time working with him on a build and came away with loads of knowledge on what you are wanting to do.

Seeing you are in Wales another possibility is Brithdir Mawr, could have just the right people to advise you

Good luck and have fun with it

 

[woodlearner9810182]

Try to get hold of Ben Law if you can. Probably possible through his website or via the Permaculture magazine.
Many years back I spent about 6 months part time working with him on a build and came away with loads of knowledge on what you are wanting to do.

Seeing you are in Wales another possibility is Brithdir Mawr, could have just the right people to advise you

Good luck and have fun with it

Probably harder to get hold of nowadays as I imagine he is a minor celebrity in the hippy circles and probably charges thousands to get an audience with him.

Yes I had read about brithdir mawr recently. The about page on their website is certainly full of drama! It bursts the bubble of the idyllic image we have of these places.

 

[John Brown]

Have you considered straw bales?
My brother in law built a house out of straw twenty years or so back.