Category: Farm

We started harvesting our earliest blooming lavender (lavendula angustifolia var. “Folgate”) June 28, 2013. First we had to train the newbies.

The harvest crew was working hard to get all of these two long rows. We harvest by hand because we are too small to have a harvesting machine, it’s easier on the plants, and we get better bundles.

We hang most of them on wires, so we have to pin them with opened up paper clips.

Ming is hanging them in our shop – it makes it smell so wonderfully fragrant.

Here is the happy crew after our record setting day of harvesting about 1200 bundles from about 200 plants. Not bad at all!!

We are harvesting lots of sunflowers!! They are so beautiful in the field and in arrangements. You pick is available, too. So, whether you want to work hard and get your own, or just come by and get the ones we’ve picked – you are in luck!

Every year we say the same thing… This year we’re going to get at the weeds before they get too big. Every year we curse ourselves for not being able to do that.

This year we worked on getting attachments to the tractor to help with between row weeding. I got a bar and frame to which I attached two vertical bars to which I attached scrapers.

One scraper is flat to scrape off the heads of the weeds between the rows of lavender.

The other is bent up on one side, to scrape the bottom and side of the raised beds.

They work pretty well, as long as the tractor can fit over the plants and it’s not blooming season.

The tractor we have is a 30 horse power New Holland with a clearance of about 14″. That is too low for all but some of the angustifolia lavenders. We have one variety, which we really don’t know the name (shameful, but no one I’ve contacted can tell me what it is) that is about 24″ tall when it’s not blooming, so the low-clearance tractor does some damage to the tops. Luckily, this lavender regrows pretty well. The Provence we have is also too tall, while the Grosso is only slightly too high.

Don Meehan built the scrapers for me. Lucky for me one of his talents is welding. In this picture you can see the raised beds. After the scraper goes through they are more defined.

One of the joys of being on the farm is watching what nature does. The other day I was sitting inside talking and drinking coffee with friends when a huge flock of red-winged blackbirds and a few starlings descended onto our birdfeeder. They looked so neat, especially with the daffodils blooming right there…. I had to share.

We have been working hard in the greenhouse tranplanting starts and starting more. It is looking really beautiful. Do you know our plants are certified organic? That means doing things in the greenhouse can be tricky, because we can’t use standard things to eliminate pests. So far we’re doing alright, and there aren’t many pests aside from pesky fruit flies. The greenhouse is a “cold” greenhouse which means there is no additional heat in it. It has gone below freezing at times in the night during the winter. But now that spring is here (see the daffodils?) the nights are warmer so the plants are doing quite well. Note the purple pots? They’re new and boy do they look great!

We’ve also developed a way of printing out our own tags in color that have plant information AND a little bit of history or story about the variety. We’re working like crazy to get those tags written, but they, too, are very cool. I’m excited about this growing season.