March 2008

This year's crop has been harvested, graded, and bundled. As a belated new year resolution I am giving up making predictions, because in August last year I thought the harvest would be a smaller quantity of shorter rods. I was partly right, in that the crop was lighter, but all varieties have overgrown, so that there were more 5 and 6 foot than shorter sizes. As a consequence, I have almost completely sold out of 3 and 4ft material - just some part-bundles of the triandras left. Even the 3 and 4ft bundles left over from last year have been sold to customers who pre-ordered.

So: in stock are good quantities of 5 and 6ft rods in most varieties, and 7ft rods in a few varieties. Mature stock from last year is available at a discount price of £12 per bundle.

News of a project Blencogo Willow is pleased to be associated with:

Last year, Tim Palmer of Inverness, together with a potter friend, built a willow and clay kiln on Orkney. The pictures below show the process of making the kiln, which was a scaled-down trial run for a full-sized kiln that was constructed in Cromarty, Easter Ross, in September. This version was over two metres high.

Blencogo Willow has supplied the material for both kilns.