WHOA! These last two months have flown by and I can’t believe that we are in full-fledge harvest mode. Who would’ve thought?
Let me answer the first question (for those that have been following our journey)… YES, I was able to keep the lavender alive. Not only is it alive but it is bountiful.
We began small harvests in late May of the English Lavender that was planted in late March. English Lavender is a form of culinary lavender and so this is what we used to create our Lavender Lemonade recipe, as well as some of the other edible recipes we have been working on.
Late June, our test field was popping purple faster than we expected and so we began the process of harvesting by hand. This is a slower process than bulk harvesting, however we determined it was the best method as it also allows us to only take stems and buds that are ready to be harvested – hence making the most out of our harvest in the first year.
So far, we have harvested from the Dilly Dilly, Hidcote, Grosso and Phenomenal. Some of the variations of lavender are doing better than others and so we continue to wait and watch as our test field blossoms.
To-date we have harvested over 30 bundles for dried bouquets, several pounds we will dry for culinary lavender and heaps more that we have used in our Addicted to Lavender products.
Typically, in Virginia, July is the end of lavender season… however, we believe that we will be select harvesting until late August and couldn’t be more thrilled. As we close July, we are prepping for our first Pop-Up Event called Lavender Day where we are partnering with Mark and Jan Wiener from Vintage Faire to create a day of all things lavender – soap making classes, lavender lemonade and of course releasing our 2nd small-batch of Addicted to Lavender. We hope you will join us.