English
We have come to an end of the infrastructure works in the main body of the woods. The roads are complete and now form an extended circular route of just over 3 miles. This means we can now start the thinning operations which will transform the woods by initially allowing more light into the conifer areas and allow light to reach the floor to start the process of natural regeneration. The main haul road has settled nicely and is showing signs of blending in with greenery growing in at the edges and the coppiced edge trees regrowing well. The quarry we have been using is now finished too. We have now started to use this space as a wood yard, we have been bringing the timber that is around the site, into this yard to process. Milling it using local sawmill operators and selling locally as people order, this has been going for a variety of uses from making raised beds for MENCAP right through to house building. The clearfell is finished for now, with just an area of hemlock left to fell.The next process is thinning the rest of the woods to give space for the remaining trees to grow. We have been spending time marketing the timber that will be produced and we believe we have now found a market for the timber that will be produced. The ground preparation and replanting has also been done, with over 32,000 new native trees having been planted. These are now growing well and are becoming more visible as they are in their second year.
We have planted oaks from seed we previously collected locally, these will be for full mature canopy trees as well as for coppice on a 27 year cycle, this should produce durable split fence posts that don’t need chemical treatment. We have planted ash coppice, also for use as firewood and craft, hazel for craft use and nut production, sweet chestnut for timber, fencing and nut production, a few hundred walnuts for timber and nuts, and a range of mixed natives for added wildlife benefit.
We have been planting wild flower and herbs and with the help of local school children, fruit trees fruit bushes and strawberries, to date we have planted around 100 fruit trees and intend to plant more each year.
These new areas of mixed broadleaf trees will transform the woods from a single species woods to a diverse local user friendly one. We feel the benefits will be felt by many local people for generations to come. The previous crop of conifers was just that, a crop to be felled when mature, it was not particularly suited to the site and has had various adverse effects on the flora and fauna, which we are sure will now start to recover.
We are also improving the general appearance of the entrance, by restoring and repairing the stone walls and pillars now the digger work is finished there. Mick and Len have already started on the stone wall near the car park. We hope to run a stonewalling training days for those interested, see the courses page or contact us for details.
We have also been busy removing the rhododendrons as they are known to spread disease to native broad leaf trees. Recently we have been giving them a secondary treatment to finish them off.
Across the bridge in Pen rallt we have created a link road, to join the top and bottom tracks, which extends to the length of the woods. This road is now complete. the most recent work has been up through Cilgwyn woods which helps access for residents from New Chapel. We have also done some work at the request of Pembrokeshire county council who funded the work to repair the bridleway that runs down from Parc Clement, this now opens another good circular route.
We have been tidying up some of the trees we had to fell to make the tracks, we have been processing some of the Douglas Fir on the new track behind the lake house and waterfall, we are getting some great logs for milling, and plenty of material for fencing, and a steady market for these despite the downturn, we have been peeling the fencing our selves and will also use these to fence some of the boundaries that we still need to do by hand. We have been processing some of the milled timber and made some sheds to take to events over the summer. We used some of the offcuts to make some simple benches which we placed around the woods.We managed to sell some composting toilets to festivals during the summer and we have also supplied both milled timber and round logs for house building, and recently used some timber to build a coffin.
We had a great open day on July 5th with around 100 people, we used the local green dragon bus to drive some of the older residents around to show some of the recent changes, most people were supportive and and about 60 people filled out a questionaire we handed out.
Outside the woods, we had a fantastic community day on Sunday 2nd November when we pressed over 200 bottles of apple juice and more than 30 people came and helped with the whole process, we hope to make this an annual event with November 1st already being mooted for 2010. This is just a taster of things to come once the fruit and nut orchards are producing in Ffynone.
This years vegetable growing course, is just getting under way and is going from strength to strength with new people getting involved each year, this years crops include, onions, strawberries,potatoes, salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, beetroot,apples, plums and sweetcorn . So if your serious about being self sufficient in food, and want to learn the skills to grow on the appropriate scale, please contact soon to be part of this exciting area . With forecasts of world food shortages we are doing our bit by planting an extra few acres of veg.We are also extending this area this year by trying out techniques to store and preserve the produce over winter.
As a reminder please be careful where we are working, we have been putting up safety signs to either exclude or warn people, but it seems some people think it funny to steal them, although we are replacing them as soon as we notice, you might come across a site when they are missing so be aware. we are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.
Although we are yet to publicise the website and haven’t even officially launched the project our website has now had more than 35,000 hits thanks everyone. We are currently receiving more than 50 hits a day.
Upcoming meetings
We are now well under way with our regular meetings, the next one is booked for June 29th in Bwlchygroes village hall, at 7pm. We are using a short newletter to keep people up to date and these seem to be generating a good response The idea of FSC certification is moving forward and if you want to be consulted as a stakeholder please get in touch quickly as it only a short time window to do this.We hope this process will highlight any areas we do need to address and give the wider community the assurance that our forest management techniques comply with current best practice .
With many real issues affecting the world now and in the near future we hope the result of this engagement will be a way to move forward constructively.
It is already possible to see how the trees we coppiced next to the main tracks have grown back and after another years growth will be taller still.
Forestry is a long term business and to be practiced effectively foresters need to think 50-200 years ahead to think what will be needed, how the climate and social system may change, sometimes it means making difficult choices, and we know that forestry operations can look shocking especially in their first winter. But we also know that trees are the future in a low carbon economy and that in order to use wood products, someone has to cut down trees and plant new ones. Its a long cycle and people get used to them one way and rarely notice them growing bigger each year. From a foresters perspective a lot of Ffynone is crowded and dark, due to lack of active management, our plans to thin the rest of the conifers should let light get to the forest floor to encourage natural regeneration but also allow the remaining conifers to grow larger.
