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Hallo everyone, our garden was in the path of the storm called Klaus, you may have heard of it. Just from our garden we estimate we will have enough firewood for 3 years but what do we do with the rest of it. We have a garden shredder but I think it would take years to shred it all. Nobody in the region wants it and I don't want to burn it. Any thoughts on uses of green wood gratefully received.

If you are dead set against burning it (and I confess I am a big fan of using brush wood fire in cultivation: the intense heat kills weeds and the ash adds potash to the soil), then I suppose you have a couple of choices:

- If you have the space to pile it all up where it will be out your way then it will provide habitat for all kinds of beasties. Hedgehogs, for example;

- Take it to your local déchèterie: they often collect quite substantial garden waste for shreding and composting.

excuse my pregnant brain, but I don't understand.....is the rest of it not good enough for firewood or is it that you don't want more than 3 years of firewood hanging around?

I had a load of prunings that were too small really to make firewood and I already had loads of kindling. I piled it up in the corner of the garden and chucked spare soil and a few turfs on it. It's made a lovely artificial bank which is covered with bulbs all beggining to come up now. And I'm sure it's made a great home for hedgehogs and other wildlife.

Zoe

We have cut up 5 oak trees, the youngest was 83, 2 field maples of the same size, still in the garden are 10 plum trees, 3 cherry trees, 3 pine trees, 6 poplars and torn off branches of other trees. I don't want to attract hedgehogs to the garden as we have badgers in a wood very close. Firewood needs to dry for 2 to 3 years and while I will store as much as possible I think we are nearly at the limit. Nearest decheterie is 14 miles and we don't have a lorry plus our decheterie charges for lorries. Pass the matches. By the way , it is the same all over this part of France. In about 8 years there will be a very big shortage of wood and at the moment you cannot give it away.

And here's me crying out for fruit wood, maple and oak. Why can't you live in Cornwall

Pete

Is any of it worth sending/selling to a small scale timber mill? fruit woods can be used for veneer and cabnetry depending on the sizes of trees, some of the others may have some value as well.

Dominique wrote:We have cut up 5 oak trees, the youngest was 83, 2 field maples of the same size, still in the garden are 10 plum trees, 3 cherry trees, 3 pine trees, 6 poplars and torn off branches of other trees. I don't want to attract hedgehogs to the garden as we have badgers in a wood very close. Firewood needs to dry for 2 to 3 years and while I will store as much as possible I think we are nearly at the limit. Nearest decheterie is 14 miles and we don't have a lorry plus our decheterie charges for lorries. Pass the matches. By the way , it is the same all over this part of France. In about 8 years there will be a very big shortage of wood and at the moment you cannot give it away.

I see your problem. Unhappily, burning it would seem to be the only answer, which is a terrible shame.

Why will there be a big shortage of wood in France in 8 years time? I understood that woodland cover had been growing at about 8% per annum for the past few years and was forecast to continue, albeit more slowly into the future. Do you mean a a result of the storm?

How long will the wood stay good for before it rots? You'll be kicking yourselves in 4 or 5 years time if you are having to buy firewood! I'd stack it, cover it with a tarp and hope that it will still be good for as many years as possible, and by the time it is rotten it will make a great wildlife habitat.

I do appreciate that you can't just do all that in a few months as that's an enormous amount of wood and there's other jobs to do in the garden !!! and I am sorry for the loss of your trees also.

I do wish a couple of my sycamores would blow down though. We have the firewood here but not the means to climb up big trees to fell them. We just cut off branches where we can and take out younger trees that are manageable, but still have to buy in the bulk of our firewood.

We can't have a bonfire here as the land is just too wooded so we waste an enormous amount of time chopping up the unusuable small bits of wood in order to take it to the dechetterie (tip). Still it is good exercise for the arm muscles using loppers!

Millymollymandy wrote:I'd stack it, cover it with a tarp and hope that it will still be good for as many years as possible

I would agree with this tactic, do what the old country folk used to do, make faggots from the smaller branches they are great for starting a fire in their own right. If you have no more room under cover, place a layer of faggots on the ground and stack your logs on top, then cover with a tarpaulin.
Putting a layer of faggots on the ground was always a foundation for old fashioned haystacks, keeps the valuable bit off the wet ground and is expendable.

There is nothing wrong with keeping oak for many many years, some of our neighbours have wood from trees that came down in the 80s.

Maple and fruit wood you could try advertising on some of the ex-pat sites as there are furniture makers etc out there who would gladly drive across France for it.

Alternatively you could try fencing, creating raised beds, and making garden furniture or animal enclosures (log cabin style)?

It would seem a shame to burn it for no purpose.

I have not heard anything about wood supply problems in France, in fact quite the opposite, as more French move to modern buildings and leave old farmhouse to become derelict, and more and more foreign property investors look to alternate sources of heating with the odd wood fire as a feature, locally we are being told that wood will be over stocked within a decade.

Maple and fruit woods are also good for smoking meats with, see if there's a charcuterer nearby. Or use it as an excuse to build a smokehouse