Tag: 2015 harvest

my house smells of lavender today

Lavender Hill

Yesterday I began to strip lavender buds from the stems of the 2015 Harvest of Lavandula x-intermedia. This is a general purpose grade 1 lavender. This is NOT FOOD GRADE lavender.

Today I am finishing up with the Lavandula x-intermedia and packaging it for market.

Lavender is hand stripped from each bundle over a Riddle and captured in a holding bucket. Some of the larger stems are removed by this screening process and others are removed by hand.

This is what it typically looks like when it’s packaged:

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Purchase All Natural Dried Lavender from the Rustic Lavender Boutique or online from my ETSY shop and my Local Markets ~ but only while supplies last.

Culinary Lavender

Lavender Hill

I haven’t blogged much about Lavender since the summer’s harvest…

After the 2015 harvest and after the lavender was completely dry in the drying room, I took each bundle and separated it by variety and usage. The separated bundles went into winter storage.IMG_7002

Now it’s time to begin to strip the lavender buds from the stem. This is all done by hand one bundle at a time…a labour of love as its very labour intensive.

Today I’m cleaning and grading culinary lavender from my true English Lavender varieties.

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As I strip the lavender buds from each bundle I do this over a “Riddle”. This allows the buds to fall through and into a waiting bucket while sorting out some of the larger stems held back on the screen.

This may need to be done several times to catch as many stems as possible.

Next taking small amounts (2-3 cups) of the roughly graded culinary lavender I run it through an even finer mesh. While the riddle sifted out the largest particles from the lavender buds, this step sifts out the finest particles from the lavender. And I’m left with culinary lavender that looks like this:

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Yes but still not good enough for the Lavender Hill Hippie! So I move up to a larger mesh strainer (smaller than the Riddle but larger than the first mesh strainer)…a size that allows the buds to fall through while holding back a little more of the bits of stems and leaves. Only after this stage is the Lavender Hill Hippie satisfied that its ready for market and when it looks like as it does in the photo below with very few to no stems and leaves.

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I should mention that there is nothing wrong with some stems and leaves mixed in with lavender buds. All are edible. I just like to present the best product possible. There will be some bits of stem and leaves in Lavender Hill Hippie Culinary Lavender however following the above process the majority is removed prior to packaging for market.

AS EASY AS ONE ~ TWO ~ THREE

Purchase Culinary Lavender from the Rustic Lavender Boutique:

The Lavender is cut ~ now what?

Lavender Hill

IMG_6825I 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!

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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!

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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:

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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.

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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.

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