Warm climate lavenders

The lavender family of plants is large. There are some that ring the warmer parts of the Mediterranean and go a little further south that don't even look like the lavenders that we think of as typical. They have a variety of names such as Lavandula buchii var. buchii, Lavandula canariensis subsp. canariensis, Lavendula minutolii var. minutolii, Lavandula roundifolia, or Lavandula pinnata var. pinnata. They have heads with multiple spikes, they don't smell particularly nice, although they do put out a strong odor. It might be that the smell is what helps them survive, nothing wants to eat them. The leaves vary, but in general tend to have a ferny look to them. They are tender, in our northern area we can grow them as annuals, but not perennials - or you can put them in a pot and bring them inside during the winter.

Distilling Lavender Essential Oil

When you get a bunch of lavender growers in a room and ask them about distilling you get as many passionate descriptions about the only way to distill as you have people in the room. At the International Lavender Conference in Cambridge earlier this month there were people from world famous lavender farms as well as much smaller entities, like ours. Henry Head, from Norfolk Lavender, showed off his distilling system that has been in use since 1933.

For those who are debating the issue of whether copper or stainless is the best, the vats are lined with copper. They are clearly very old and well used after having distilled their world class oil for over 75 years. Hanging is a top to one of the pots and a pusher that compacts the lavender in the pot. To Henry's left on the floor is the separator.

To get the lavender to the distilling room he showed us the harvester they have developed. The front part scoops up and cuts the lavender and it goes into the green bin behind. The unit is attached to a tractor, I believe, and harvesting goes quite quickly. Norfolk Lavender produces primarily an oil out of angustifolia lavenders, I don't think they do much with the hybrids (lavandins), but if you know differently, please comment to correct.

Day Four International Lavender Conference

What a great day at Norfolk Lavender. Henry Head, who spent the last 30 years building it up into a world class venue for lavender, lavender distilled oils, and lavender gardens, put together a fascinating day of tours and information sharing sessions. He brought in the perfumer he uses to create the scents for Norfolk Lavender products. I have to say, getting my nose to be able to smell the subtleties of the oils is difficult. Maybe after 30 more years of sniffing I'll get there.

Day Three Lavender Conference

Presentations today focused on using lavender essential oils for health care, both physical and mental. It was an amazing collection of information and case studies - much more research is needed, of course, but let's just say that there are certainly reasons to do the research because the potential for significant healing seems to be there.

The afternoon was spent with Dr. Noel Porter who trains people on how to use the nose to evaluate and identify aspects of lavender essential oil. He had kits set up with many constituents of the essential oil of lavender so we could learn to smell the different parts. Then we were tasked to identify them in a complete lavender oil. This was really tough!

Day Two Lavender Conference

This, after all, a first rate university, here at Cambridge, and the scholarly presentations are quite good. We haven't had much in the way of practical exchanges, but the scientific papers give a lot of food for thought. For instance Timothy Haig presented on his research on how to use lavender extract to suppress weeds. In his case he was trying to rid wheat fields of annual rye. That was somewhat amusing to me because this year we planted annual rye to reduce weeds between rows of lavender without having to till. It worked, although we did have to mow between the rows. But he said he made a slurry of ground up lavender leaves and stems and then strained it out and applied it to the weeds. I have to ask him for a bit more information on details - so keep checking to find out more.

I put out our catalogs and brochures and had some of our essential oils out for these world experts to smell and comment on. I've learned a lot about the constituents of the oils, and we have an oil workshop today that should give me lots more information.

Day One Lavender Conference

At Cambridge University about 85 people from all over the world have gathered for the First International Lavender Conference. Tim Upson from Cambridge University Botanical Gardens has organized the conference with the help of Susyn Andrews (co-author of Genus Lavendula). Stacy and I have joined this group for six days of lavender immersion. Already we have learned so much and are inspired.

As you might know, there are many varieties of Lavender in the world. The garden here has some from the remote areas around the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands and more. The Canary Island and other desert lavenders are spectacular in how they look. I think we have started seeing them in the USA, sometimes they are called "Fern Leaf" lavenders.

I'll be posting more as time permits.

82 Years and Counting

It's not everyday that you get your 82 year old mother to work on the farm!

She lives on Martha's Vineyard, and Whidbey Island is about as far away as you can get from there in the lower 48 states. I thought I'd never see her on the farm again, because she doesn't like traveling all that much until this spring she and Ronnee, my step-father, decided to take the Trans-Canada train to Vancouver and then come to visit for a few days before flying back home.

Our family believes in helping out, so she promptly got herself situated and started taking off rubber bands from the stems of banded lavender. We cut the heads off to distill, then we dry what's left and winnow off the remaining buds to get every last bit of lavender possible.

Meanwhile, Ronnee was working to rebuild our garden cart that had rotted over the years of use and exposure to the elements.

Mom got fairly comfortable with the routine and she finally started describing the distilling process to our visitors. She's telling them about boiling the water in the bottom chamber and the steam going up through the packed lavender flowers in the upper two chambers. It picks up the essential oil and then gets condensed back to liquid and drops into the separator so we can take the oil off the top. I couldn't believe it! She did a good job, too bad she lives so far away and we can't get her working here more often.... :)





I'm so lucky to have such a fun mother and step-Dad, it was a huge treat to have them here!

The Festival was Great

I usually don't brag all that much, but our festival was really pretty darn good. People had fun, ate good food, drank good wine or lavender lemonade, looked at lots and lots of good arts and crafts, bought lavender, and listened to outstanding music.


The people who work here on the farm were fabulous, and then we were graced by a number of amazing volunteers who parked cars and helped us set up and tear down. Finally, I want to thank my neighbors who put up with this party once a year.

You can see pictures of the 2009 Festival

Festival This Weekend

Our annual Art Festival is coming this weekend on Aug 8 & 9. I just wanted to give you a preview of some of what will be here. For those of you who are too far away to come, just check our site for the exact weekend for the next one in 2010.

Last year we had many artist's booths. This year we have many more. We have at least 22 artist booths that will have 30 artists work in them.

The full list of artists (click here and you'll see the list plus the website connection for those artists who have websites).

Carol Bement - Miniature painting
Joan Brosnahan - Painting & collage
Mary Burks - Textiles
Peggy Darst Townsdin - Books, jewelry, photographs
Brandon Davis - Photography
Marilyn & Mike Dessert - Quilling, woodwork
Anne & Bob Elkins - Photography, lathe turned bowls
Nikki Farias - Felt hats & purses
Renee Hockett - Photo Purses
Loretta Graff - Textiles
Kelly Kellogg - Photography
Maggie Lancaster - Fiber - silk banners, pillows, scarves, braided rugs, chair pads
Mary Leonard - Painting
Lyla Lillis - Ceramic
Beverly McQuary - Beads/jewelry
Kay Parsons - Painting, polymer switch plates
Norma & Gerry Roberts - Painting, leather journals, cards, stick people, flutes, stationery
Helen Ryder - Watercolor, collage
Tiarani Samsi - Silk Scarves, Pottery
Mariana Shawver - Painted and collaged mirrors and constructions
Brian Shelly - Photography
Mary Alice & Tom Sterling - Art baskets, handmade baskets
Sylvia Strohm - Ceramics, crochet
Carrie Marie Tasman - acrylic, pastel, polymer clay
Robert Troost - Pottery
Sharon Tryon - Painting
Yummy ways to enjoy the day
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Whidbey Island Winery will be serving their wines at our wine tent, and Lavender Wind Farm will serve lavender lemonade.

Bay City Bistro will have lavender mussels and baked goodies on Saturday and on Sunday Hot Rock Pizza will serve their new on-site baked pizza that is creating quite a buzz around here. Click here to see Hot Rock Pizza in Action on Youtube!

Little Brown Farm & bayleaf have partnered to serve goat Cheese & french bread with some drizzles to go over them. You've gotta taste this!

Whidbey Island Ice Cream will have a great selection of their gourmet ice cream bars, including some with our lavender.

Denali Dogs is starting out their hot dog cart at this festival and will have hotdogs (of course), brautworst, and get ready for Reindeer & Vegetarian sausage.

Crescent Harbor Blueberries will have loads and loads of fat blueberries for you to munch on while you wander around.

Our own Lavender cookies will be there, too.

And the MUSIC!
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This year we rebuilt our deck. That means we have a great stage for the musicians, right across from the Whidbey Island Winery tent.

The line up for the Festival includes:

Saturday
11:00 am - Quinn Fitzpatrick
12:30 pm - Bayview Sounds
2:00 pm - One Eyed Reilly
3:30 pm - Woodrush

Sunday
11:00 am - Siri Bardarson
12:30 pm - Fairly Soon
2:00 pm - Shifty Sailors
3:30 pm - Ken Merrell et al

Lavender essential oil as herbicide

While I love our Lavender Luster, which we say provides aromatherapy as you clean I never in my wildest imagination thought that I'd see "aromatherapy while you weed"! Apparently, scientists in Italy have discovered that some essential oils can be useful as an herbicide. They are finding that lavender essential oil can affect root growth in the plants. It also affects the soil microbes and fungi involved in crop growth.

Can't you just see us dancing through the fields spritzing the weeds? If only it would be that easy. Obviously, a lot of work has to be done to find out what exactly happens to the weeds and whether beneficial microbes are hurt by the application of lavender essential oil. They have been doing research on other essential oils and are finding that cinnamon and peppermint oils are effective as pre-emergent herbicides - stopping seed germination. The essential oils used for this could be very good because they don't persist in the environment. They are easily degraded by enzyme and microbial activity.

Turns out this isn't as unique as I'd thought. Monterey Organics has an herbicide with lemongrass oil as it's active ingredient. In 2002 there was a study at the Appalachian Fruit Research Station that found several herb's oils effective in killing a number of weeds. The most effective of the herbs studied were red thyme, summer savory, cinnamon, and clove. There are more studies and products that have been completed, and I'm sure we'll be experimenting with some, but I still love the vision of gossamer-clothed ladies spritzing the fields.

Go Navy

Here, on Whidbey Island, people who buy real estate are given a piece of paper that warns them of the noise zones from Navy Air Station practice flying patterns. Our farm is between two major flight circles, so they don't fly over our place too much. Oak Harbor is home to the Navy community which adds quite a different feel to that community compared to the rest of the island. For half of Whidbey Island the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station is a big part of daily life, for the other half they hardly know there is a base on the island.

I went to high school in Falmouth on Cape Cod (in Massachusetts). Some of the kids from nearby Otis Air Force Base came to our school. I had a couple of good friends for a year or two, until they left with their parents to other postings. A close family friend had been in the Navy during WWII and had then pursued a career in the marine industry making ocean research equipment. I never had been on a base, nor gone to any base exchange in my life until getting to Whidbey Island.

Imagine my delight when the Navy Exchange here on Whidbey contacted the farm to see if we'd sell our products there. "Sure" I wrote back, and "no, we don't have minimums, but we also might not be able to completly fill orders, either, if they are too big." After sending in reams of paperwork, the local buyer forwarded it on to the national office, and they asked if we'd be willing to sell to other bases. "Sure" I wrote back....

That started a stream of weekly orders that have taken over our staff. We make a lot of different products right here on the farm. This new, huge, customer wanted as much in a month as we sell in a year of some of the items. Happily, we all pitched in and filled the orders and shipped them off, learning how to work with the system on the way. Our friends here on the island are glad to hear that they will be able to get our products when they relocate to Sigonella or other bases that we sell to.

As you can see, we collapsed after getting the boxes ready for one week's orders (you can't see all of them in this picture, but you get the idea).



Rick and I are also Waste Wise Volunteers. That means we help folks on the island with recycling and composting information. WI-NAS (Whidbey Island Naval Air Station) has the premier recycling center in the nation. The program has grown over the years I've been on Whidbey to include food waste recycling. That task is significant because of the health and pest concerns in managing it, as well as the large volume of material that is now kept out of the landfill. We, in the recycling community, are very proud of the Navy's efforts.

Farming Tools and the Workshop & Dad

One part of farming I never thought about when I used to think about what farmers do is the workshop where machines are fixed, invented & built, or other structures and or equipment are made. It is amazing how important handyman skills are in the farming life. We have to fix our tillers, tractors, and mowers. We have to build boxes, screens, sorters, strippers, storage boxes, and market containers. It's a large part of farm work.

My father died in January and I've spend about two months sitting with him and then planning his Memorial Service for all the people who loved him. This has been a very sad time, and yet joyous due to celebrating his life, learning more about it, and getting closer to my brother and sister. Dad was an excellent scientist and administrator, and he was an excellent craftsman and had a huge workshop that he used constantly. He was very creative and developed all these really cool things to use at his place and his lab. He was known in his field for building a box that helped model a molecule in which he used wood and glass to do what fancy modeling computers do now. He built a catamaran barge to use in the little harbor he lived on. He made me a cheese press when I had goats and was making cheese.

So, now we are trying to figure out what to do with his shop. Surprisingly, each one of us three has a degree of handyman abilities. My brother is building his son a treehouse, my sister rebuilds pianos as well as does things for her farm, and I build what I can for our lavender farm. I think Dad would be proud of us, and pleased that we value what contains so much of his sweat worked into every tool handle and piece of equipment. Each of us would like to have bits and pieces of the shop, so we'll divide it up and give family friends the rest. It's like little bits of Dad will be dispersed throughout the country to continue his good work.

Thanks, Dad.

Creativity and Competition

Today I spent the day in our State Capital, Olympia, with a group of farmers from my area. The one thing we all agreed upon is that it is refreshing and unfortunately rare to have farmers share the details of their farming with others. There is a fear that by sharing information we will be copied or beat to the market. While a little of that fear might be true, I would like to propose that it can't be really true. And that is because it's not the idea, it's what you DO with the idea that makes a project or product truly your own or unique.

Ben Lillie explains it much better than I, in his Physics blog on Coincidence and Creativity

Harvesting Lavender

From the end of June until sometime in October we are harvesting lavender. Different varieties bloom at different times, and we have over six varieties grown for commercial harvest. Here Leslie is harvesting our Provence lavender. We harvest by hand, using a Japanese sickle. We now use kevlar gloves to protect our workers hands and wrists - those sickles are incredibly sharp and can do severe damage.

The lavender is cut at the base of the flower stem, and then bundled with a rubber band. Each bunch is lain on the previously cut bushes until they are gathered up for hanging inside where it's dark and there is warm, moving air to dry them out. If we have a period of rain, which is relatively rare in our area but this year we had a rainy end of August, the lavender simply dries much more slowly.

The smell of the lavender is so wonderful, and carrying in arm loads of bunched fresh lavender is a delight.

After the lavender is dried, we either use it on the stem or take it off to use as dried bud for sachets or cooking.

Lavender Wind Spa Dog

Bailey, the Lavender Wind Spa Dog is communing with one of our decoys. We are harvesting in the background. Bailey was a delight this summer, she greeted our customers - sometimes with barks, other times with a wagging tail.

2008 Art Festival and Taste of Provence

A month ago we had our Third Annual Lavender & Wind Art Festival with a Taste of Provence. It was sort of the first, because we combined the two events into one big festival - and big it was! There were over 3,000 people who came.

There was a great wine garden that had a "fence" of lavender bunches and fabulous cheeses and french bread.

We had lots of music, and one of the staples of Whidbey life - the Shifty Sailors - were very popular.

The artists showed their creations and some sold quite a bit! Families of the artists came to help out, too. Our staff helped some of the artists set up. They also hung many artists' works in our own display areas.



The weather was fabulous, the Olympic Mountains guarded the event. The staff worked their tails off! It is humbling to see the dedication and hard work that so many people put into this event - the artists with their works and their booths, the musicians with their instruments and talent, the folks from WSU Extension who staffed the wine & food tent (did I mention that section was a fundraiser for the WSU Island County Extension Sustainable Agriculture position?), the staff in their constant attention to the needs of the visitors, artists, and volunteers. The farm, in its beauty and purple splendor on that weekend, put on a fabulous show!

Farming is NOT an exact science. Someone (Mother Nature) keeps us from having the same situation year in and year out. This year in the Pacific Northwest we had an unusually cold and rainy spring. It looks like we are now getting to a more normal summer pattern. But, the cold wet spring means we still have green grass and our lavender is just barely starting to be purple.

Will that mean that all the varieties will be slow to bloom? If so, our purple alert which reaches 10 around mid July, might not get there until the end of that month.... Tune in, to find out.

Have I raved recently or even at all about the people that work here at the farm? The folks that work here are amazing - funny, kind, hard working, dedicated, smart, creative, and did I mention hard working? They are: Kathy, Stacy, Abby, Mare, Leslie, Maxwell, and then there's Rick and me. Over the years there have been more - and sometimes they come by for a visit, I love those days.

Over the last couple of months Stacy and I have been developing recipes for our new line of mixes. In order to work on the recipe we have to make up batches of the goodies (by now Stacy is the one who does most of that while I flitter around waiting for them to come out of the oven).

Stacy is mixing up stuff - Great except we've all gained weight as a result!


Then Leslie inherited Bailey now known as the Lavender Wind Farm Spa Dog. She's a delight - mellow, watching the people and only barking when the UPS guy comes and she knows he'll give her lots of dog biscuits if she barks at him.

Leslie has been so fun for all of us, and boy oh boy can that girl work!! She even dug out moss from our neighbor's place and brought it here for the step into the gazebo. She's an inspiration, too, because she took time off from her career to hike the Appalachian Trail - all the way! She blogs about the farm, too.

Kathy comes every other week or so and files papers for us. She comes in time for lunch - a fine farming tradition that we uphold with devotion. Some of the folks bring energy bars for their lunches and we make fun of them. Then they eat cookies or lavender shortbread. It was Kathy who really got the gift shop started - she kicked me out of the room, telling me to get my potting and gardening stuff out of there - no arguments. We're so glad she did!

Bottom line: I love this group of people! More about the rest later.

Who'd think about Lavender being useful against Bedbugs? On the other hand, since it's so useful against so many insects - why not? Read about it

If you just want to cut to the bottom line: use twenty drops of lavender essential oil into a spray bottle filled with about 2 cups of denatured alcohol and spray onto the affected area.

Last Saturday we woke to over 3 inches of snow on the ground. While that might be normal for Minnesota or Vermont, it's very unusual here. This week Saturday was sunny and in the high 50's - a lovely day.

April has been a miserably cold month this year. The lavenders are slow to wake, the daffodils that can bloom as early as February in some years, weren't blooming until a week into April. Tulips are now coming on. The poor folks in Skagit County where they have the April Tulip Festival are suffering because now the tulips are starting to bloom, a few weeks after the "start" of the festival. Ah, Mother Nature, we must never forget that you are the boss.

Much of the vegetable garden is planted and I put in a lot of yarrow down in another space near the lavender field. We'll be growing more herbs there this summer, rather than ornamental flowers. A sunflower maze is going in on the new field - Whoopee!