British beanpoles beat bamboo

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Considering buying bamboo beanpoles for your runner beans? Well don't! Buy British beanpoles instead which are sourced for local coppice woodlands and your purchase will help those woodlands to thrive.

Slowly but surely, and not before time, our woodlands are being managed, in some places, in the old and time-proven way of coppicing and beanpoles are but one of the products that can be made from those woodlands managed in this way.

We need all to get reconnected with the natural world of wood and its endless possibilities.

Coppicing is a management system – probably the only management system – for our woods that benefits the woods, the wildlife and us and this system has been used in the British Isles since, probably, neolithic times and under this management the woods have thrived as did the wildlife and, to some extent, also the people making a living from such woods. Yes, there was a time when it really was possible to make a living working the woods and selling the produce from them, and it was not just beanpoles, hurdles and charcoal.

At the beginning of the 20th century in many rural places in Britain and elsewhere wooden spoons were still used for eating and wooden bowls and those, in general, were all made by local craftsmen from the wood from local coppice woods.

When it comes to beanpoles, and let us return to them, while they may be more expensive (yes, in fact, they are) than bamboo poles the environmental impact and footprint of them it, however, a very small one, especially if the poles are harvested locally.

Many people seem to believe that such bamboo poles last almost for ever but I have found that a season is about all that they can handle before they become brittle and I must say that I have had hazel poles that have lasted two or even three seasons.

This year's National Beanpole Week runs from the11th to 19th April 2015. Support your local events and buy some British beanpoles for your gardens. For more details see http://www.beanpoles.org.uk/.

© 2015

For more on coppicing and why, etc. see “Managing our Woods”, a small book that explains the whys and wherefores of managing our woods in this way and calls for us to return to that way.

Beanpoles and pea sticks

Beanpoles and pea sticks are the mainstay of coppicing operations

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Not much that there can be said about beanpoles and pea stick, you may think, but that is where the error could lie.

Most of those poles for your beans today are imported bamboo and that certainly is not a sustainable way and neither does it benefit the local economy.

For almost an eternity gardeners and growers relied for beanpoles and pea sticks on the local coppice worker and both benefited. This can be the way again if we are just prepared to look at it from the right angle.

Beanpoles and sticks are one of the most reliable type of coppice product and can be harvested on a very short rotation coppice. Wood for other uses requires many more years to mature and thus beanpoles and pea sticks can be a reliable source of income to the coppice worker if the user is prepared too change his or her ways and go back to the ways it used to be rather than taking imported bamboo.

While it is true that bamboo is a fast growing grass – it is not a tree by any imagination despite the fact it can grow to forest size – it also has a long shipping distance. But, true, bamboo canes as plant supports generally weigh in cheaper than do coppice product beanpoles and pea sticks. However, on the sustainability scale bamboo canes and poles do not score very high because of their transportation costs, by way of fuel usage and thus emissions.

Locally cut wood products are by far more sustainable than anything else and they support local people and also, as coppice management of woods is a good thing, in creating biodiversity in the local environment even if one does not lend an actual hand in such biodiversity management schemes.

No more than forty years ago one would hardly see any bamboo canes in use as plant supports in vegetable gardens, allotments and even with commercial vegetable growers. Today, however, it is almost all that we do see and it is very rare indeed to see any locally grown and sourced beanpoles and other plant supports in use, which is rather a shame.

Beanpoles and pea sticks are the mainstay of most coppicing operations, closely followed, but larger wood is required for this, lump wood charcoal, and it is for that reason alone that we should, wherever possible, buy locally grown, cut and sourced plant supports and ideally directly from the woodcutter. That way he or she gets the money all and no middlemen take any cut.

Support your local woodland worker by buying his products and at the same time you are supporting the environment, biodiversity and the local economy.

© 2013