I cut the first lavender bundle of the 2015 season on July 15th and the last on July 27th. Now what? Time to relax? Put my feet up? Reap the rewards?!….not quite!

The winter was hard on the lavender as was that bizarre killing May frost. At the time I estimated that I had lost about 5% of my lavender plants over the winter and anticipated some further damage/loss after the May frost. After counting the bundles in the 2015 harvest at 352 this indicates a loss closer to 15% over the 2014 harvest!

The drying room isn’t as full as last year however the calyxes and whorls on some of the spikes seem normal size on the Lavandula x-intermedia:

The peduncles on these two specimens are also a good length however these are the exception. Not all the Lavandula x-intermedia peduncles were this long.

At this point I don’t know how great that 15% loss in production will affect my overall Lavender business going forward. I will be in a better position to evaluate this once the lavender completes its drying period and after the buds are removed from the peduncles.

After that the calyxes will be cleaned. They will go through a Riddle (as seen in the photo below). I will sift out the impurities (by hand) and after that I’ll be able to get a weight on the final 2015 lavender harvest to compare.

By the way my Lavandula Angustifolia, that I use in my Culinary Lavender product, is screened twice or more of impurities through the Riddle. My Riddle is equipped with 3 screens of varying sizes. Screening using the Riddle is very labour-intensive hands-on dusty work however screening makes for a better product in my opinion.