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In our wild field we have lots of ash trees and young saplings every where we plan to harvest some for burning on open fires ,I have to cut saplings down to give room for the trees to get to a good size for burning and i was wondering could i use the saplings to make raised beds? My idea is that i bang lengths of thickish ash thinings into the ground approx two feet apart and then weave the ash thinings inbetween the stakes to form a sort of mini woven fence thingy, do you think it would work or would it be a waste of time ? all advice will be greatly recieved :)

Ash is an excellent tree for " green" burning logs, i have used it in the past
for making things when it is still green but depending on the thickness of the saplings it can tend to get brittle, but do not let that put you off , if you can utilise it for a mini fence go for it its FREE.
forresters years ago used every sort of timber for all manor of jobs
all things rot eventually.
All the best

Russ

This is done often with hazel or with willow as the weavers. Lots of other woods have been used as well. And the beds look nice too.

The main things to consider are what the top of the stakes look/feel like. If they are rough or pointy they can cause a variety of injuries. One way to get around this if the wood is flexible enough is to bend the stake into an inverted U. That way the top of the stake is rounded and each makes 2 stakes. If you do this, put the end of one of your stakes next to the beginning of the next inverted U and treat the 2 together as 1 for weaving purposes so you will have an odd number of stakes to make the weaving go right.

Charring the part of the stake that will be in the ground makes them last longer too.

If you dont mind them being somewhat tempory then this will work well. for longer term ground resistant wood i am inclined to suggest sweet chestnut or some sum species