Oliver Pemberton
Why a willow basket earns its keep
There is something deeply satisfying about carrying a basket you have woven yourself out to the vegetable patch on a September morning. Beyond the romance, though, willow is genuinely the right material for the job. A woven basket has give in it, so a load of potatoes or a dozen eggs will not bruise the way they do in a rigid plastic trug. It breathes, so damp produce does not sweat and spoil. It is light, it balances well on the hip, and when a rod finally gives way you can re-soak it and tuck it back into place rather than throwing the whole thing away.
If you have a damp corner of the smallholding that floods in winter and grows nothing much else, plant it with willow. Cuttings pushed into the ground in early spring will root readily, and once the stools are established you can cut them back every winter — coppicing — to give yourself a fresh supply of rods each year. It takes two or three seasons before the rods are long and clean enough for serious basket work, but the bed will look after itself in the meantime.
Choosing and sorting your rods
You will hear willow growers talk about brown and buff. Brown willow is dried with the bark left on; it is robust, slightly rougher in the hand, and ideal for honest working baskets that will be shoved about in a garden shed. Buff willow has been stripped of its bark and boiled, giving a pale, silky, very flexible rod that suits finer work. For a harvest basket, brown willow is the sensible choice.
Look for rods around 1.2–1.8 metres long, with the thick butt end no fatter than your little finger. Sort them before you start:
- Stout rods for stakes and handles — these form the skeleton of the basket.
- Medium rods for the pairing weaves that build the base.
- Fine, whippy rods for randing the sides and for the border.
Named varieties such as 'Black Maul', 'Dickie Meadows' and 'Brittany Green' all weave well and are widely grown in the UK. If you are buying in, order in late winter when the season's crop has been cut and graded.
Soaking, mellowing and tools
Dry willow snaps; soaked willow bends. Everything depends on getting this stage right. Stand your rods butt-end down in a water butt, an old bath or a length of drainpipe, weighted so they stay submerged. Brown willow of average thickness needs three to five days; thick rods take longer, while buff willow may be ready in twenty-four hours. Test a rod by bending it sharply — if it flexes without cracking, it is ready. If the bark slides off under your thumb, you have left it in too long and the rod will be weak.
Then mellow the willow. Wrap the soaked rods in a damp sack or old blanket and leave them in a cool shed for a day or two. This lets the moisture even out through the rod, and it makes a remarkable difference to how the willow behaves under your hands. Do not soak more than you can weave in a week or so.
Keep your kit simple: sharp secateurs, a bodkin for opening gaps in the weave, a rapping iron or a short length of heavy pipe for tapping the weave tight, a weight to hold work in progress, and a plant sprayer filled with water to mist rods as they begin to dry out.
Weaving a sturdy base
Start with three stout rods about 1.5 metres long. Split the butt end of one down the middle for roughly 10cm, then slide the other two through the cleft so you have a six-spoke star. Take a fine weaver and begin pairing: pass it over one spoke, under the next, all the way round, working two rods together so they cross between each spoke. Lay in a new weaver behind the old one when it runs short, and keep the spokes evenly spaced as the disc grows.
Work outwards until the base measures roughly 25–30cm across — a good size for gathering courgettes, kindling or a bundle of wild flowers. Trim the butt ends of your weavers flush with the underside of the base, then bend every spoke sharply upwards. Soaked willow should fold rather than crack; if a spoke resists, mist it and wait a few minutes.
Upsetting, waling and randing the sides
The upright spokes are now your stakes. Hold them together with a three-rod wale: take three rods and weave them as a group, each passing over two stakes and behind one. This gives a strong, handsome band at the foot of the basket, and you should work a second wale just below the top edge for the same reason. Between the two, the sides are built with randing — a single rod passing over one stake and under the next, round and round.
Keep the stakes upright and evenly spaced as you go, and every few rounds tap the weave down firmly with your rapping iron. Slack sides are the mark of a beginner's basket and they will sag badly once loaded with produce. Aim for sides around 20–25cm high, misting the willow whenever it starts to stiffen.
Handles, borders and looking after your basket
For a garden basket, a single bow handle over the centre is hard to beat. Bend a well-soaked stout rod into a U, push the ends down inside the basket alongside two opposite stakes, and lash them firmly with fine willow, weaving a few rounds either side of each end so the handle cannot shift. Finish the top with a three-rod border: bend each stake in turn behind the next two and push it down inside the weave, then trim the tails neatly.
Hang the finished basket in a dry, airy shed for two to four weeks. It will shrink and tighten as it dries, firming up noticeably. After that, keep it out of standing water and never soak a finished basket, as this softens the weave and encourages mould. Willow darkens to a warm honey colour with age, which only improves it. If a rod works loose after a hard season, dampen the tip and tuck it back where it belongs.
