Autumn in the Woods: A Working Season

By the time the first gales strip the beeches, the woodland year has already turned. Autumn is the busiest and most rewarding season for anyone who looks after a few acres of broadleaf, a stretch of hazel coppice or a run of old hedgerow. There is food to be gathered carefully, and there are jobs that are far easier now than in February, when the ground is sodden and the light has gone by four. Treat it as two halves of the same day: gather first, then give the wood something back before the storms arrive.

Gathering Nuts and Berries Without Stripping the Wood

Hazel cobs are ready from late August into October, depending on the year and how far north you are. Pick them while the husk is still green and the shell is pale, and discard any nut with a neat round hole — that is the exit of a nut weevil, and the kernel inside will be hollow. Sweet chestnuts come later, in spiky husks that split and drop after the first sharp frost; they are scarce north of the Midlands, so leave them for the squirrels if you are not going to use them. Sloes are worth waiting for until after a frost softens them, and rosehips and crab apples make excellent jelly.

• Leave plenty behind. Take a third at most from any bush or tree; the rest feeds jays, mice, squirrels and overwintering birds.
• Never uproot. In England and Wales, picking wild fruit and fungi for personal use is not theft, but digging up a plant is, and it is an offence to uproot anything on a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
• Permission matters. You still need the landowner's consent to be on the land, and commercial picking always requires it in writing.
• Berries for the birds. Leave the top third of every hedgerow unpicked — it is a winter larder, not a larder for you alone.

Fungi: Rewarding, but Never Guess

Autumn is when ceps, chanterelles, wood blewits and field mushrooms appear, and few things beat a basket of your own finds fried with butter and parsley. But this is the one activity in the woods that can kill you. The death cap and the fool's webcap both grow in Britain, both look innocuous, and both are lethal.

Follow a few firm rules. Cut cleanly at the base or twist out gently and then press the leaf litter back; a woven basket lets spores fall as you walk, which is far better than a plastic bag. Leave small, immature specimens alone and leave the oldest to release their spores. Take only what you will eat, and never collect from a nature reserve without asking first. Above all, eat nothing unless you are certain of the species — check two field guides, and better still, learn alongside someone experienced before you trust your own eye. When in doubt, photograph it, admire it and walk on.

Clearing Leaf Litter and Drains

Wet leaves on a path are as slippery as ice, and they block gullies, kerbs and culverts just when the autumn rain arrives. Rake the main paths, ride lines and gateways clear, and stack the sweepings in a wire bay to rot down into leaf mould. Oak, beech and hornbeam take two years; sycamore and lime break down in one. Sieve it and use it as a seed-sowing compost or a mulch around newly planted trees.

• Do not clear everything. Leaf litter is habitat — hedgehogs, toads, beetles and moth pupae all rely on it. Clear the paths and leave the beds.
• Keep leaves out of water. Never sweep litter into a pond, stream or ditch; the nutrients feed algae and smother gravels where fish spawn.
• Check grips and culverts. Clear them now, before the first downpour, and note any that need a new pipe or a stone headwall.
• Beware of bonfires. Build the fire on the day you burn it, or lift and turn the pile first — a hibernating hedgehog will not move fast enough.

Inspecting Fences, Gates and Boundaries Before the Storms

Walk the whole boundary with a pocket of staples and a fencing spanner. Check the strainer posts and their diagonal braces first — if a brace has rotted, the whole run will slacken in the first gale. Test the tension of stock netting, look for gaps at ground level where rabbits and deer push through, and make sure the bottom wire is pegged down in dips. Gate posts take the most punishment: check hinges, spring latches and the gate's swing before the ground softens.

Then look up. Any tree leaning over a path, with a cracked fork, a hollow base or brackets of fungus on the trunk deserves attention now rather than after a storm. Ash dieback has left a great deal of brittle timber standing in British woods, and affected trees near paths, roads or power lines are best dealt with by a qualified arborist. Note the hazards, mark them, and book the work while the ground is still firm enough for machinery.

Craft Work for the Long Evenings

Autumn and winter are the coppicing months, cut between leaf fall and budburst while the sap is down and the wood is at its most durable. Avoid hard frosts, when brittle stems shatter rather than cut cleanly. Hazel rods, cut low and clean, will make hurdles, beanpoles, thatching spars and the handle and binding of a besom broom. Birch twigs, gathered and dried, make the brush head; sweet chestnut splits into paling for fencing and cleft laths. Longer straight hazel goes for gate hurdles, and offcuts become pea sticks, plant supports and kindling.

It is slow, satisfying work, and it pays the wood back twice over: coppicing lets light reach the woodland floor, which brings back violets, wood anemones and the fritillaries that follow them, and it produces a crop you can use rather than buy. Stack the brash into a low pile at the edge of the coupe, leave the standing deadwood alone, and the insects, dormice and bats will do the rest of the work for you.