Are you growing your own firewood?

Question

I would be interested in what trees you are growing, how many trees you go through a year and how you manage it all.

Crikey Granny , you obviously want me to be dependant on big business. I have been burning wood since I was young. Yes, I know all about hard work, I have six children. No, we don't have natural gas and electricity is too expensive. Wood is a renewable source unlike the other two, don't believe all the rubbish fed to us by the powers that be, they want us dependant on them.

Answer 1

It would be closer to say I am growing my children's firewood and burning my parents trees. We have 11 acres, about 4 of which are old growth Oak, Walnut, Hack berry, Locust, Elm and Osage Orange with some Hickory, Green Ash, and fruit woods.
I cut and burn approximately 8 cords of firewood each year, mostly through thinning of close growing trees and removal of less desirable and rogue trees. A large part of the harvest is hack berry that grow densely around our pond, cut when they reach 8-12" at the base leaving larger trees to reseed.
I plant 10-20 burr Oak each year, germinated from the acorns of our 300 year old specimen. These are for my children.
Out Locust are fast growing and mature in about 10 years to firewood size. These re-sprout from the stumps producing numerous 6"-8" trunks that a cut as they reach size.
"He who cuts his own firewood is twice warmed" :)

Answer 2

No, I don't but I used to use wood for heat . Using fossil fuels is one of the contributing factors to pollution in the world today.
If it is your plan to do this then you better have a small size national forrest. Especially if you have cold winters. It can take anywhere from 10 to 20 ranks of wood per winter. Location is everything.
Most people use oak wood because it's harder wood and burns longer. Pine has too much sap as do any soft wood trees, and they burn too fast and too hot.
It is constant hard work trying to keep warm in the winter. It is constant work bringing it in from the cold keeping it covered to keep off the snow and it is absolutely constantly dirty in the house with smoke and bark chips. You have to work all summer to get ready for the winter cutting and splitting and stacking.
If I were you I would check the insulation in the house to see if you need more. It might be worth it to remove your siding and do a house wrap as well, put the siding back up and get propane or some other form of heat, if you don't have access to natural gas. Consider even electric .
You also have to consider replanting after you cut to keep it growing.
The worst part is getting up in the morning and it's colder than a well diggers b@tt and you have to crank up the stove to warm up the house and if you have kids they will be sick all the time because of uneven heat.
My description comes from a city girl from CA that move to MO and had to learn the hard way, what NOT to do.
I hope I have discouraged you because you will never work as hard as you do with wood heat.
God help if you decide on wood. I hope you are young and able to stand it.

Answer 3

we let a few black wattles continue to grow naturally and we cut down the mature trees for firewood, black wattle can reach maturity by 8 years is a very hard and slow burning wood and also turns very well.

We are in qld so we dont go through many a year we just keep a few at different ages scattered across our acreage