Hazel, Lottie and a Potash Party ...but don't tell the allotment police

A Potash Party on Sunday,

There is little to match a blazing bonfire on a cold blue crisp day, when even the warmed mulled wine and hot home baked cakes struggle to touch our toes. I tried to keep it quiet that this hazel pruning fest was also a potash party for the bees to get a high next summer.

Mulling over the cakes.

These are days which we know in our family to be nippy round the “gnu gnus” ( pronounced noo noos), when even the catkins are as crispy and as crunchy as the unyielding ice baked earth.

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Cool catkins

; Catkins in perspective

Pruning hazel now, too early for the purists, is possible and provides a plentiful supply of wood for hazel hurdles, a form of fencing, and fuel for the fire. Coppicing is a long lasting tradition in the weald of Sussex. Today the philistines that suggest that allotments should only have low level dwarf trees threatens the practice of many naturally sustainable and historic traditions of self sufficiency.

www.coppice-products.co.uk/

Pruning hazel poles with precision

Max Beerbohm told us that `Fiery' has always a noble significance. It denotes such things as faith, courage, genius. Earth lies heavy, and air is void, and water flows down; but flames aspire, flying back towards the heaven they came from. They are the symbol of purity, of triumph over corruption. Water, air, earth, can all harbour corruption; but where flames are, or have been, there is innocence.

Wood Potash for 2010

a Symbols of purity, a triumph over corruption?

There is little that can be more pure than pollination by bees and producing honey. Bee keeping (although under great threat) is banned on some allotment sites, but on Friday 15 January BHOGG is holding a fascinating talk on bee keeping. ( see www.bhogg.org )

The wood potash encourages the flowering, that tempts the bees to pollinate next years fruit and so we will come full circle and need to burn the hazel wood again next year.