Author: Sarah

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Signage to the Farm

SIGNS! On Monday the Island County Commissioners voted to approve a signage program much needed in our area. In Washington we have a state Highway Motorists Information Signage Program wherein businesses and recreation/tourist places can apply for signs to be placed on those signboard that have “Gas” or “Food” or “Tourist” kinds of things. It’s not easy to qualify, but once a business does a sign gets put up. Well, it does IF the business is right on the road that is off the highway. Any more turns and “follow through signage” is needed.

In Island County we now have a provision to apply for that follow through signage. Yahoo! That means that Agritourism oriented farms can now be found. That means that other small home-based businesses that qualify for the state sign system can be found. In a rural area, where even knowing an address doesn’t mean that a place can be found because the roads wind around and are sometimes not well marked.

Over the last two years we’ve been putting up sandwich board signs at the intersections and they do make a difference – the only trouble is that they are illegal. So, we don’t do that anymore. If counties want to help small farms survive and if we realize that part of small farms (that are near urban areas) need to rely on agritourism signage is a key component.

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Winter blogging

Do farmers blog less than others? I’m looking at my series of blog entries and realize they are very intermittent. I have a cousin who writes in her blog at least once a day. When I get up the first thing I do is look out the window to see what the weather is doing and decide what I can do outside. In the winter, it’s often inside work because we don’t work out in the field when it’s too wet or snowy. On Whidbey Island we don’t have much snow, but every once in a while we do and this year has had quite a lot (for us). Coming from southern New England and having lived in Denver for many years, it doesn’t compare. This is a banana belt compared to those places.

Even when I’m inside, though, I’m consumed with the tasks I’ve put off in order to do the work outside. So, there is precious little time to write in a blog, much less think of something remotely interesting to write about.

Today will be different, though, because I’m visiting my son who lives in a city far away and I have the luxury to kick back, gaze out the window and think up something that might be interesting.

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January work and teens on staff

The weather! It’s January and constantly like this – windy, spotty rain or more, chilly…. It’s hard to get out to finish the pruning. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we can also transplant. It’s actually a good time to do it, as long as the weather is above freezing. The ground is very juicy and the temperatures are cool enough that the plants are dormant. The only problem is getting up the gumption to go out and do it.

Lt Rain37°F
(3°C)
Humidity: 82 %
Wind Speed: ESE 21 G 26 MPH
Barometer: 30.31 in (1026.70 mb)
Dewpoint: 32°F (0°C)
Wind Chill: 26°F (-3°C)
Visibility: 0.00 Miles

I just hired another Coupeville teen – now we have two 14 year olds working here. I like to think of kids as my “other” crop. This last summer we graduated three that had been with me for several years – one had been here since she was 14. It was a proud moment as well as being rather poignant – to go to their graduation and cheer them on their way to college. Meanwhile, Spencer, the new kid at the farm, has been doing very well. Yesterday he dug out the dirt and grass from the fence around the vegetable garden so we can replace the fencing. It’s old enough now that the voles and rabbits can just chew through it and get into the garden to eat OUR food. Spencer said he didn’t mind it at all, was listening to music as he worked. I think iPods and other portable players are such a gift – it makes working so much more pleasant!

Each year we have a holiday party and the three new college kids (who have left Lavender Wind Farm to go on with their lives) came, one with her boyfriend, and they were happy. Each one was growing in her own direction, and because they are still freshmen, that direction is still rather fuzzy.

This year we got our first company sweat shirts.

This year we have lots of new stuff planned for the upcoming season. And this winter we are taking care of lots of background paperwork. This is usually a chore I avoid, but to avoid being outside in this weather…..

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Building the Pond

Building a pond and terraced gardens is taking up most of our time and energy these days. Owen’s Raco Construction here on Whidbey Island is doing the work – it’s amazing to watch good masons create these beautiful walls. But, the mud has been awful. Sometimes I wonder if the place will ever recover!

The pond has to have a liner because the glacial till that underlies our fabulous sandy loam topsoil is porous. The pond is being built to collect rain from the building roofs and the driveway. It is very deep to reduce loss from evaporation. But, we’re not completely sensible because we also are creating a stream bed that will circulate water from the main pond to a small holding pond above and back down. It’s going to be fabulous – once the pond fills up. I figure it will take all winter and spring to fill the pond. The snow we had just after Thanksgiving weekend put a stop to the project for a week.

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Oak Harbor Football similar to lavender

High school football isn’t something we talk much about at the lavender farm. But, this year Oak Harbor High School’s team won the state championship and the town is all a-flutter about it. The Wildcats haven’t had their own stadium since 2002 and have been playing great ball in spite of that. I have to wonder if they are like lavender plants, they thrive when stressed a bit. Lavender produces better oil under a bit of stress, and the Oak Harbor High’s team is playing great football. Congratulations to the team and the coaches – Go Cats!

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Lavender an Endocrine-disrupter?

Lavender and Tee Tree Oil are getting some impressive press because of research that indicates they are linked to breast enlargement in boys age 10 or younger. Research by Clifford Bloch of the University of Colorado School of Medicine seems to say that these two oils both mimic estrogen and suppress androgen. He collaborated with researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina who found that breast cells grown in test tubes exposed to these oils reacted in the same way as cells exposed to estrogen. Dr. Bloch reminds us, though, that growing cells in test tubes is different from what happens in a live human body – the research remains hypothetical at this point.

But, it brings up a very important point. In our ordinary daily lives there are many ways that we can be exposed to endocrine-disrupters such as phytoestrogens. My mother took DES when pregnant with me in the early 1950’s. For many girls born from mothers who took this drug serious health consequences has been their fate. DES was used in animal feed for a couple of decades and continues to be sold in developing countries. This is just one example – others are soy, a chemical used in making plastics, and room fresheners. Phytoestrogens can have both positive and negative effects. This is not a simple, straightforward issue. We need far more research done on the effects of natural compounds such as essential oils in and of themselves and we need research of natural compounds vs artificial ones such as artificial scents.

As a lavender grower the link of lavender essential oil to endocrine disruption is, at first, worrisome. It’s important to remember a few things, though. The original correlative research was done on 10 year old boys who are at a vulnerable point in their hormonal development. It is not reasonable to believe that the effects reported happen to people of other ages, and it isn’t clear how girls react. It is important to remember that we need to be aware of endocrine disruption in general and phytoestrogens in particular because there are health concerns, but keep your head and don’t be swayed by hot-press items until they have been proved several times over that they are true. (Proving is not the same as copying and forwarding information on the internet, proving requires separate scientific studies.)

On a philosophical note – I have to ask, why the over-kill on press for Dr. Bloch’s findings? While I think we need to pay attention by following the research his work will spark, there are far more damaging endocrine disrupters out there. I think there is a bit of hysteria about two things – first we seem to be defending our chemically-based products, and second we are worried about being “girly.” I don’t mean to minimize the problems of having one’s body develop the other gender’s characteristics – that condition needs to be cured so that child doesn’t have to suffer the consequences. However, lavender oil has been known, over the centuries it has been produced, to create a relaxing effect. Could that be because of the estrogen-mimic they are now speculating about? Could it be that we need a bit more relaxation in our lives – to reduce a tendency to be too combative? What about the other qualities of lavender oil that people talk about, such as anti-microbial effects? We’ll be looking more into lavender oil, its effects, and research.

Here is a little article that makes sense to me: Scented oils report needs clarification

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Kale Alfredo Sauce

I was faced with a huge bag of kale to cook for dinner. For those of you who don’t usually cook with kale it’s sort of like a tough spinach. It has LOTS of great vitamins and mineral, so it’s good for what ails ya, but it doesn’t lend itself to easy, fast meals. Except last night I created a great pasta sauce out of it – here’s the recipe.

3 or 4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion chopped up
3 large cloves of garlic chopped up
1 stalk of celery chopped up

Saute those in the olive oil in a large skillet. While sauteing add

1 1/2 tsp Herbs de Provence
1 tsp ground Lavender

While the onions brown up a little bit chop up the kale, stirring the onions from time to time.

1 produce bag of kale leaves (you know, the plastic ones in the produce section, stuff it with kale leaves and that should be enough)

The kale reduces in size like spinach does, so just heap it into the pan and turn it in the pan, like a stir fry.

After the kale has sagged a bit, add

1/3 Cup of Knorr Alfredo Pasta Sauce Mix (I got it at Costco, but it may be available at regular stores)
2 cups of milk (maybe a bit more if you like thinner pasta sauces)

Cover and let it cook for about 5 or 10 minutes. The Alfredo Sauce should provide all the salt you need.

When it’s done put it over your favorite pasta (that you have already cooked) and enjoy!

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Farmers Markets

Sunshine feels like a blessing in April when it seems as if the cold rains and winds of winter won’t release their hold. This is the first Saturday that we’ve had a pleasant calm day. Gini came to take the market van to our local farmers market in Coupeville. We loaded her up with tables, a canopy, products, lots of plants, and enthusiasm. On Whidbey Island we have five (5) farmers markets! That’s a lot for a long skinny island of about 75,000 people. Lavender Wind Farm used to go to three a week, Thursday evening, Saturday, and Sunday. As things got busier on the farm we reduced the numbers and now just go to the one Saturday market.

I was on the board of the Coupeville Farmers Market for several years and learned a lot about running markets. In Washington we have the Washington State Farmers Market Association. It has rules and standards for markets as well as resources such as insurance and networking. Vendors at markets are an interesting, free-spirited lot. They pride themselves on their individual ways of doing things and their own products as well they should. But, sometimes it’s hard to get that level of individually focused people to band together or agree on a course of action. The underlying agreement, though, is to provide the best possible for their customers and to get customers to come to the markets. In cities, it’s less difficult to find people, but out here in the rural areas where the population of the town is not yet 2,000 folks critical mass can be a problem. Nevertheless, the people on this island value homegrown food and local crafts, so the market is growing every year.

Gotta go, the sun is shining and the weeds are growing.

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Water rights

April in the Pacific Northwest rain shadow region means that the rains are starting to diminish. At last. At Lavender Wind Farm we are waiting to hear about our application for a Water Right to collect rain from the roofs to put into a holding pond which we can then use to water things like plants in pots. We don’t irrigate here at all because we don’t have irrigation rights with our land.

Western water rights are a complex set of laws(WSU’s Water site). We live on an island which is a “sole source” aquifer. Our source of drinking water comes from one source, the aquifer under our feet that is recharged by rain. We don’t have rivers running through our island that we can take water from, so we are completely dependent on the health of the aquifer below us for drinking water. The problem is that there are many places on this island that are threatened with salt water intrusion. Our health department monitors the water situation and the level of rainfall is important in recharging the aquifer.

Lavender, coming from the dry summers and wet winters of the Mediterranean region is well suited to grow without irrigation in our Mediterranean climate. Our summers aren’t as warm as those in southern France, but our lavenders grow very well anyway. The plants that are more exposed to the harshest of our winds – the west wind – are having a harder time. They are smaller and less prolific than the others in the deeper soils and more protected areas of our other fields. Even so, we don’t irrigate. The native lavenders of France are stubby little plants in hard-scrabble dirt. These are the early colonizers of the lavendula family and it’s impressive to see them struggle for existenced in their natural way. They only have the water that comes from the rains and they bake in the hot summer sun – a real testament to survival with style. They smell so good!

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New Farm Gift Shop Opens

It’s 4 am and there is a slight line of light in the eastern sky. Spring has passed, but the weather is not yet dependably nice. But, the light in the sky this early in the morning means that the warmer season of light is just around the corner. It’s a relief to have more and more light, but it also means more and more weeds and work.

Our new gift shop is having it’s opening today. After lots of work and worry it’s done.

In these days tiny (micro) farms, like mine, who are in tourist locations without a huge population base nearby to feed may need to have places to visit and things to do in order to survive. It’s taking the idea of multiple streams of income seriously. Here, on Lavender Wind Farm, we also take the concept of Triple Bottom Line very seriously. When we do things we want to be sure of three things
1) It helps the financial health of the farm
2) It is sustainable and good for the earth (at least not causing it harm)
3) It is good for our people who live here, work here, or visit and for our community.
The gift shop is subtle, you don’t notice it from the outside, it’s just a room in the garage. It’s also part of the operation because lavender drying wires are strung across the ceiling there, as well as throughout the garage. In harvest season we are scrambling to get the lavender dried and then put away for use during the year. There is an attic in the garage where the ceiling rafters are, at their highest point, 5 feet high. Even I, at 5’3″ bonk my head – frequently. But it’s a great place to dry lavender – warm, dry, and, because of the fan, moving air. You can see the empty wires across the ceiling in the new gift shop, waiting for June when the first part of the harvest starts.