Tag: drying lavender

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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Harvesting and drying Lavender

Lavender Hill

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I’ve been cutting lavender almost each day since July 23.

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Lavender in “the secret garden”

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Since I’m not using my lavender for crafts and bouquets, I wait until the blossoms are generously open on each plant before harvesting.
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Carefully working alongside the buzz of the honey bees, that are very gentle,  I respect their work while cutting. This is a later blooming lavender that will be ready to harvest later this week and into next.

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Lavender is very hardy. I grab a bunch at a time and cut towards the end of the stem and into the green.

Never cut into the woody part of your plant as lavender is unlikely to grow from below the cut if you do.

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Once I have a bundle – as much as I can hold in one handful – I wrap an elastic around the stems to hold it together. Elastic works best as the stems will shrink during drying and the elastic continues to contract to hold the bundle together.

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I work across the top of each plant giving it a much-needed haircut until the plant is stripped clean of flowers.

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Bundles of freshly cut lavender from inside the secret garden.

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Back to the drying room where I tie a piece of string around each bundle and thread those onto a long pole that hang from the ceiling. During the days I open the doors to get good air circulation through the drying room. Depending on the weather, humidity, etc., the lavender takes about week – 10 days to begin to feel dry to the touch and the lavender buds separate easily from the stem.