Welcome to 2024

My Tree Almanac for 2024 at last becomes current today, 1st January 2024. Here are a few snippets for January extracted from the book. Before you read on, I wish all my readers a wonderful and fruitful 2024.

“After the excitement and merriment of the Christmas period, January can feel a little daunting at first. Many traditional sayings warned of the peril in believing that spring had arrived. Yet, it is impossible not to feel some cheer when catkins appear on some trees and snowdrops emerge from the leaf litter.”

January, The Tree Almanac 2024

• Moon wood felling: 4-11th January
• Twelfth night 5th January – wassailing to encourage the sap to rise in our orchard trees (recipe for Old English Wassail with crab apples on p.26).
• Practical notes: in the garden, dig up any spare tree seedlings and transplant or pot up / in the field and orchard, lay hedges / in the forest, plant young trees and prune existing trees (most species)
• Wildlife watching: birds (goldcrest, woodpecker), invertebrates (ladybirds, galls), mammals (hazel dormouse), plants (mistletoe), fungi( beafsteak fungus, hoof fungus, King Alfred’s cakes)
• Moon after yule (first full moon of the year): 25th January
• Tree of the month: hazel
• Celtic tree zodiac: Birch (24th Dec-20th Jan) and Rowan (21st Jan-17th Feb)