Orcharding and Vinegar Brewing is not only about maintaining our orchards or working in the Vinegar Brewery. Growing apples and making apple cider vinegar is just a part of our overall homestead. The whole homestead as well as we homesteaders need to be taken care of in addition to the orchards and brewery.
For example, we heat our home with wood. That means we need a steady supply of firewood to get us through the Winter. We get some of our firewood off the farm. We manage our modest woodlot sustainably using an ancient, traditional method called “Coppicing”.
This is a description of ‘coppicing’ from Wikipedia: “Coppicing is the traditional method in woodland management of cutting down a tree to a stump, which in many species encourages new shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. A forest or grove that has been subject to coppicing is called a ‘Copse’, or ‘Coppice’, in which young tree stems are repeatedly cut down to near ground level. The resulting living stumps are called stools. New growth emerges, and after a number of years, the coppiced trees are harvested, and the cycle begins anew.”
Coppicing provides a sustainable and steady supply of firewood from our woodlot. We’ve found that coppicing supplies a large amount of firewood from a small number of trees. In addition, coppicing opens the forest floor to sunlight which increases the biodiversity of woodland plants and wildflowers.
Returning to a warm woodstove after a cold winter day pruning apple trees is deeply satisfying. It’s even more satisfying when we can provide some firewood from our own homestead woodlot.