Newsletter – Issue 9

Hello everyone,

Welcome to the ninth Leach Press and Oakist Press newsletter.

The aim is simple – once a week, I'll send a short update covering new books, new videos, events, projects and life at Oakwood.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting independent publishing.

The newsletters are now available on the website, and each edition includes access to the monthly appendix and its photographs.

New Oakist Press books

Three new books have recently been released through Oakist Press.

New Leach Press book

One new book has recently been released through Leach Press.

New videos this week

Oakwood Rewilding Project

Work continues at Oakwood in Llanbrynmair.

Erika has got hold of another large batch of willow cuttings to plant around the Pond-a-Rosa. We will keep these in pots until winter, learning from the experience of planting Dave's trees during the dry weather.

There is still no news from either the cricket-bat willow supplier or the Woodland Trust about additional trees. Fingers crossed. I have also sourced some local acers from Welshpool for a small maple copse of around thirty trees, which will be planted in winter.

The tomatoes in the polytunnel are still not quite ripe. Erika continues to plant new goodies and remove the old ones. Potatoes planted in an old wooden box outside suffered badly in the heat and produced only a handful of small specimens. Next time, we need to build the soil up around the stems as they grow.

Learning when not to interfere

One of the pleasures of rewilding is learning when not to interfere.

Fireweed – also known as rosebay willowherb – is often dismissed as a weed, but it is actually one of nature's great pioneer plants.

Around Oakwood, we have decided to let most of it complete its life cycle rather than pulling it. We will manage it only where it threatens young trees or areas intended for other wildflowers.

Between the polytunnel and Pond-a-Rosa

The area between the polytunnel and Pond-a-Rosa is beginning to show the transition from managed planting to natural regeneration.

Planted trees, including beaked hazelnut, Siberian pine, hornbeam, horse chestnut and ash, are now joined by self-seeded oak and downy birch.

Large grey willow is also establishing, while meadowsweet, soft rush, marsh thistle, Yorkshire fog, sweet vernal grass and greater bird's-foot trefoil are adding diversity.

Work around the site

Mulching around the new trees continues. Hopefully many will be large enough next year to outcompete the grasses.

Work has started on sourcing trees for a cider orchard. I still need to find a source of tart apple varieties on M25 rootstock.

The Art-a-van has now been completely stripped and cleaned on the outside. I am planning to install a stand-alone solar system, while Erika is working on the internal layout.

The battle with the dock is almost complete. Justyn and I have been doing roughly an hour a day each with the strimmer and hedge cutter.

The hidden birch

Sometimes the land teaches its own lessons.

This week, one of those lessons came from a young birch tree that had been completely hidden beneath the vegetation.

It was roughly twice the size of many of the young birch trees we had carefully cleared around and mulched over the past year.

Rewilding is not about abandoning the land. It is about learning when to intervene and when to step aside.

Sometimes the greatest successes are the ones you did not even know were there.

We still need more rain!

DJ news

One new set was uploaded this week:

The gig in Newtown was brilliant. All the bands were excellent, and I DJ'd for about eight hours and danced for around ten.

Coming soon

• Further episodes of Physics, Consciousness & Reality
• Further episodes of Living on the Road, Waterways or Off-grid in the UK
• Further videos on off-grid living, continuing with solar charge controllers
• Books from Marge Hunter, Saz Denny and Alan Brown
• Crime, Justice and Punishment – An Anarchist Perspective
• Resources and the Future – An Anarchist Perspective

Author's note

Between recording, writing and rewilding Oakwood, life has been wonderfully hectic this week.