Some photos of new IRL non-AI willow baskets, one with miscanthus leaf woven in uploaded here, and linked below:
Still a little janky as far as technique goes, with a bit of cracking, but getting better and more fluid with the patterns. I have enough materials soaking to I think maybe complete 3 or so more baskets in this style for this season.
I’m doubling out the size of my production in the Spring, as I really like growing willow and all the side benefits like basket-making that it brings in addition to biodiversity and general awesomeness.
I know most people use landscape fabric to suppress competition from grass, but I have a personal prohibition against using anything plastic-based in the garden because of fragmentation, and the already ridiculous levels of contamination of micro- and macro-plastics in natural environments. I’ve carefully followed this prohibition at least ten years on now. So instead I’ve experimented with successively thicker types of brown kraft and paper for construction applications. This latest round, I’m trying something called Ram Board which is extremely thick. I’m laying three overlapping layers of that down, followed by a second course of each if I have enough. Then I’m mulching over that.
What I’ve seen previously is that thin papers (with mulch) don’t do much to suppress grass long-term, though they might last a few weeks and possibly give cuttings a bit of a headstart. Thicker ones tend to do better but still break down and let a lot of grass through in first season. I weeded the new plots out that I planted of various ages, stock sources & types, and only ever weeded those beds three times this season. There’s grass growing but I don’t see it having negatively impacted the growth of the cuttings too much.
I will leave most of those newly planted plots to overwinter, and harvest only in Spring when the ground is unfreezing, and take both my basketry material and planting stock at that time. I know other people harvest and store in Winter, but not having somewhere to store cuttings at the right temp over winter, figure they may as well just stay on the stools and I’ll cut them then. I did that this year with some others and they grew back huge, so not too worried.
I have some dogwood I’ll also harvest, though that plant material live is also really useful as fascines for erosion control which I’m exploring, and I want to try the same method I did on the river edge in my regular garden: take fresh dogwood cuttings, make them into a bundle, dig a shallow trench, cover them back up with soil. Voila. I’m curious if willow will also grow that way? Could be a means to get multiple shoots coming out of the same buried stock linearly that could be easily integrated into hedgerow armature… More experiments await in this area.