Blog

A couple of weeks ago two students created some painting ink from the Shaggy Ink Cap mushroom. It is quite astonishing how the mushroom decays over a few days and all that is left is black ink. It stinks of shellfish but makes a great paint if you can brave the smell! This afternoon, we worked as a team and raked the track again and cleared the leaf litter away. We also cleared the guttering of leaf litter, sawed up a pallet, sanded the new acorn chopping boards, work was als

On Tuesday we spent the morning busy working at the woods. It was great to finish digging the area by the gate's new post. It now can swing open freely which is very helpful. The pond was cleared of leaf litter and in the process we discovered a much larger frog appears to be living there- very exciting news! Work continued on the chair. In the afternoon, we all went for a longer walk to visit the ancient Sweet Chestnuts, near Herstmonceux Castle. They are very special and we

It's been a very autumnal couple of days at Heartwood this week. We raked quite a few leaves to prevent the tracks becoming all mushy with leaf compost as they begin their next life stage of decay, before they can nourish the next growing season in the spring next year. I suspect there'll be quite a few more leaves to rake before the seasons out. We use these leaves to create a powerful soil improver called biochar when mixed with horse manure and charcoal fines (an otherwise

On Wednesday, we completed the big task of replacing the fence post and rehanging the gate. Firstly, the post hole was dug deeper and the final piece of rotten post removed, meanwhile the new post was finished being charred. The post was then placed into the hole and cemented in. Finally, the gate furniture was added and the gate hung. It has been a real team effort. Whilst the gate was being worked on some other students were making progress with building a new chair; it is

This week at Heartwood we have had to focus on a major repair to fix the rotten gate post. On Tuesday it was all about cutting and peeling the post to remove all the bark. The lower section was then charred over the fire, this reduces the speed of rot in the sunken section. It had to be all hands on deck as the old rotten post needed to be dug out and all the undergrowth surrounding it removed. After all the wind and rain, Fruit Corner needed some tending. We removed all olde

Another couple of blissful days at Heartwood. Harvesting this year's apples, raking the track and gathering the leaves to make biochar were some of yesterday's woodland offerings and today we have been making a mallet and a ''Thor'' hammer, braking up pallets and making kidling, as well as foraging sooo many chestnuts. Some for roasting and some for planting with some acorns in last years coppice area. This has been such an abundant Mast year for chestnuts, acorns and apples,

On Wednesday we got creative and made some conker soap. We smashed the conkers into pieces with hammers and put in a large pot and...

This Tuesday we started the day off with foraging for sweet chestnuts. There are an abundance of them in our woods at the moment and it...

On Wednesday we managed to finish a few projects we'd be working on including these great acorn chopping boards and a new wooden box for...

Happy birthday to Sam and what a stunning autumn day it was to celebrate. We enjoyed sharing birthday cake and playing hide and seek to...

On Wednesday it was one of our student's birthdays. We celebrated with a cake and a couple of games, including 'Splat the Rat.' We had a...

On Monday it was the Autumn Equinox, the time where day and night are equal in length. It is a time of reflection and a season of...

This week we set about processing the acorns we'd gathered on Tuesday. We spent time sorting the damaged acorns from the others and then...

Today it was all about the acorns and fungi. We discovered so many different mushrooms and toadstools growing around the woods after all...

Oh how the weather can change in September! We had hot sun and blue skies yesterday and torrential rain for a good part of the day today....

We've had a busy day in the gorgeous sunshine today and gathering more produce from Fruit Corner. It's so good to see all the colourful...

Wednesday started out incredibly wet and windy. We spent most of the day warm and dry working in the polytunnel. We created a drying rack...

On Tuesday we welcomed the change in weather. The rain was hugely needed and we embraced it with donning our waterproofs and putting up...

This week we made delicious foraged blackberry and apple jam and ate it on bread toasted over the fire. There was lots of work done on...

On Wednesday we made a lot of kindling from the pallet wood. Many of our students enjoy the process of sawing and splitting the recycled...