Grow willow to cut energy bills and reduce your carbon footprint
We all know how productive even the smallest garden can be. With a bit of effort we can produce our own fruits, vegetables, make wine, cordials and even grow the ingredients for our own plant-based shampoos, soaps and herbal remedies, let alone homemade pest controls and compost to start it all over again.
But what about planting your garden to provide fuel to heat your home? Growing trees is generally assumed to be a long-term project, but what if you could grow enough wood to heat the average house within two to three years.
Willow trees have been used for centuries to make huts, boats and baskets. Now, a variety has been bred to grow quickly and efficiently, as a fuel for domestic wood burners. The willow is grown as a rotation crop and does not have to be cut down, but the wood can be continually harvested, dried and used as a domestic fuel.
Its rapid growth, ability to store high levels of energy and its ability to grow on non-food producing marginal land are all essential factors. Producers claim that it is ‘green’ fuel and that when burned it releases back into the atmosphere only the carbon it absorbs whilst growing. It does not increase the amount of pollution in the atmosphere, in fact during its life cycle it reduces these damaging gases.
Growing willow as a fuel is a project for a large garden or an allotment space with a 200sqm plot needed.
There is, of course, a great mind that has been pondering and then converting this concept from possibility to reality. The man in question has a fascinating background.
Anthony Heijenga was born into a North Dublin horticultural family and then rather suitably ran away to the stars. The type of stars that NASA would inspect, projects that involved Anthony working as a Nasa research scientist.
I met Anthony for a coffee and found him to be a profoundly interesting man; he explained his background over two hours. I find it hard to stay quiet for two minutes let alone two hours but the story of how he came to develop his ‘energy garden’ is fascinating.
His research in NASA had a horticultural flavour. ‘I was working with plants, not as we know them but changed into systems that are half-plant half-machine, designed to do things hundreds if not thousands of times faster than in nature... similar to the methods of producing anti-cancer drugs.’
These, Anthony explained, are the sort of systems being used on the current International Space All you will need is 200sqm to spare and you can plant enough willow saplings to heat your home Station where fast-growing plants are needed for re-absorbing carbon dioxide to make it a safer and stable environment.
All this led him to the realisation that the willow has the capacity to be grown in a garden or allotment setting that can heat one’s house. This Anthony tells me ‘may prove to be willow’s greatest gift to humanity, a future where the beauty of willow fields can replace the need for gas, coal or oil fields and contributes to the reverse in global warming’, heady stuff indeed and all possible in the garden.
To get to this point, Anthony has been experimenting in his wood- land sanctuary in conjunction with Skerries Mill in North Co. Dublin where one can see his energy willow allotments in action. It is a quiet and serene place to go as the planted willow is a nature haven with the early pollen from the willow providing food for many insects and so attracting moths, bees, butterflies and ladybirds’.
So how does all this work? First, you need to get willow cuttings, about 25cms long, which are easy to plant. ‘They are thin and initially without roots so it’s quite simple to push them into holes.
‘I use a plugging implement called a dibber. It is very important to allow the young willow plants to establish themselves, so digging the soil to a depth of 30cm will help enormously. It takes about four hours to plant a 200sqm allotment. The ideal time for planting willow cuttings is from mid-February to the end of March,’ says Anthony. ‘It is important to do it at this time as if planted in the autumn there is a risk of the cuttings rotting.’
The most important thing, says Anthony, is good weed control. ‘It’s vital from the beginning, it is very important to allow the young willow plants to establish themselves.’
Rabbits can also do serious damage to a young willow crop so using rabbit fencing is important.
By the end of the second year, the most mature rods from each plant need to be cut to encourage future harvests. This amounts already to 60% of the maximum yield which, once processed, will be ready for the burner about six weeks later. The yield is similar in year three and four, with a maximum yield from year six.
With a planting density of four per sqm, a 200sqm garden could produce around a tonne of wood fuel per year by year six, he says.
A successful scheme using the willow harvest is running already for some Dundalk residents. They wake up, says Anthony, ‘in a warm house with hot water delivered by a district heat system, fuelled by willow wood chip, produced from a field only 5km away.
The introduction two years ago of a Fingal County Council wood ‘fuel allotment’ scheme is also helping to make Anthony’s vision a reality. The council offers rental of a 200sqm area (like a vegetable allotment), that costs €100 a year, a useful option for those who don’t have a suitable garden or a lawn.
An open day is planned at Skerries Mills at their own willow garden on Saturday, November 29. Visit www.skerriesmills.org