Interesting lavender research

extension.psu.edu/.../high-tunnels/high-tunnel.../high-tunnel-cut-flower-pro...

Spring survival update

Just an update to my last post concerning winter survival.  We lost all of our Spanish Otto Quast. We don't plan to replace them at this point. The whole field averaged 10-12% loss. Pretty tough to take. We checked with some of the other producers/growers and they have also experienced large losses. They said it was due to the extremely wet spring and summer on top of the very cold winter.
We have been advised to continue to prune hard where we see signs of growth and replace what has not survived.
Our Munstead did pretty good. We found some growth to propogate from on the base of some of the plants and may purchase more but our plan to double our fields has been put on hold for now.
We found some interesting high tunnel research that may help our survival rate in the future. The link is posted in the next blog if you would like to read it.

April- Spring is here!

Well we made it through a very cold winter.  The lavender struggled with the rain and cold. We made the mistake of pruning some too late in the year.  They are the ones struggling mostly. The munstead don't seem to be too happy either. We have been laying weed barrier to replace the landscape cloth/weed barrier we put down originally. The plants are starting to green up a bit.  Most of them should be fine I think.
We lost two hives this winter to apparent starvation. It was the up and down temperatures that made them come out of their hive and spend energy and consume honey they could not replace:( Quite a few of the state beekeeper's lost hives to starvation also.

We recently started a new project that we hope to eventually teach to others. 
Sterling discovered the benefits of gardening with aquaponics, which is combining the benefits of aquaculture and hydroponics into one system. You feed the fish, the fish waste create bacteria, the bacteria feed the plants, the plants filter the water which is returned to the fish and the cycle goes on and on.... no tilling, no weeding, no dirt and you get to eat the fish and the fruits and vegetables! 

Oh yeah, we have been drying fruit and crafting gourds we grew last summer. We are selling some dry gourds too for you to craft that we have. Right now I am working on a gourd lamp. I really like working with them. Well it's late. I'm going to bed. Write me back and let me if you are interested in a gourd class.

December's happenings

Well, Christmas has come and gone now and as we gear up for another new year, we reflect a bit on the happenings of the past year.
Without getting long winded,  we had a great year and are expecting an even better one.
I had a lot of fun gathering Moss,  twigs, seed pods, and pictures for a collage for my husband. You can see a picture of it below. We gathered more Moss today for one with more current pictures to put beside it.
My goods are progressing well and I got some tools to work on them with. I look forward to creating some unique ones.

Beeswax tapers and loofah November 22 2013

We had some new experiences this month! We cleaned our loofah gourds that we grew to create loofah sponges, and we made hand dipped beeswax tapers!

Let me start with the candles, by far the least messy of the two processes. It would have been a much less painful/tedious process, but we used unprocessed beeswax, and what is called in beekeeping circles as "slum gum" and had to clean it up from a major "stanky mess" to a beautiful golden yellow wax. It was amazing! It was also amazing how  little it actually produced! I think I understand why beeswax costs/sells for so much, and why I am not going  to under price them. I do think I will buy it next time. The actual process was simple but does require  very deep pots if you want candles of any length. All a learning process, good thing you can remelt what you don't want.

The loofah, normally will dry on the vines and the seeds will come out when you take the end off. This year with all the rain we had and and early freeze, they did not have time to dry on the vines. Between peeling, cleaning, knocking out seeds, bleaching, picking out seeds individually with a pic, etc. it took a very long time to get the results we did! Definately not a labor for the impatient person! Hope  we have a better crop next year, is all I can say. We shall see. However, they scrub VERY well & hold up to tough jobs like cleaning stove tops!

Shorter days/ longer nights November 20th 2013

Late October I started noticing a slow drop in egg production and made a mental note to keep an eye on it. As we proceeded into November and we regularly dropped by 30% (3 eggs) I discovered that not having 14 hours of daylight can start to affect the hormones that control egg production. If you wanted to keep your eggs coming during the shorter months of winter you would need to supplement with artificial light. We installed a timer so that most of the additional hours would be during the morning, which according to the experts was the best. Before the week was out the chickens were back to their old standards!
Now wer just have to deal with frozen water!
Ahhhh, the joys of cold weather......  Hey, it could be much worse, we could be up north!

October 15 2013

We started putting together the propagation barn for the lavender. So far we have the water system, tables, electrical and end walls done. Just need to put in the lights, heating coils and starting medium.
Plan to propagate about 300 plants which will about double our fields.
As you can see by the pictures how much the lavender has grown. The fields are looking great!

White House Beehive

A co-worker of mine recently returned from a business trip to Washington DC.
During her off time she explored the area and being already near the capital and knowing I was a beekeeper, she kindly got these photos of the White House hives! Even though I have seen them in articles before, it was neat to have them so personal!
Pretty awesome knowing that these honeybees are cared for by our first family!

dealing with our chickens

they are such a trip! each one has their own personality. we have to that keep wanting to brood which is impossible because we don't have any roosters. they get mad and raising a  fit when we kick them out of the nesting boxes. the main broody hen today when I kicked her out of the box stood on the shade patio and gave me her two cents worth! it was funny I just gave it right back to her. oh I almost forgot I got caught in the rain this morning when I went to it let them out. I had walked down and as soon as I let them out it started to really poor, I got under cover and musta been a good 15-20 minutes waiting for it to let up enough to walk back up to the house. the chickens really like to be let out in the evening about an hour or so before sundown but they can be a real pain to get back in if you don't have patience and wait for their natural time to go in on their own.
well I'm getting long winded so I'm going to sign off now. here's some pics of then and now I'm have the chickens have grown.
and don't forget to visit our website and our online store.

Flying the coop!

the other day we came home from the White Lightning festival and found one of the chickens on the outside of the chicken coop trying to find out how to get back in! the fence was bent down in the spot where she flew over. a couple of days later I was standing on the outside talking to a friend and that same chicken flew right over the fence.
it was definitely time to take action. the challenge was getting the rain to stop long enough to do it. where were finally able to put some fruit netting across the top of the coop. the best part of that is now we don't have to open and shut the chicken run door. but that's half the fun in having chickens is going down the say hello to them in the morning. I think I'll still stop in and see them on my way to work everyday. one of the chickens likes to let us pet her! she'll stand there and kind of push for wings back and just let you Pet her it's so cute. I think I'll try picking her up today if it's dry enough I don't want mud all over me from the rain.
I have attached a video of the chickens checking out their renovated digs after putting up the netting. They are so funny!

Provence lavender harvest #1 6-10-2013

Sorry, I didn't realize this didn't publish!
well we finally were able to harvest the Provence lavender plant that we planted when we moved in. The last picture shows what it looked like before harvest. It is doing the best of all of our plants that we originally planted. We got two good sized bundles out of it! since this is a culinary lavender I plan to make some more lavender syrup with our honey. I made some this weekend, finding the recipe on the National Honey Board website which is: www.

Growing very well! May 31 2013

Well it's been 4 weeks in the ground and the lavender plants have really grown! I have already had to do a flower trim from the Spanish beyond the original blooms that were there. We placed gravel around the plants to reflect the sun as has been recommended by some of the master growers. We are hoping to get mulch between the rows before we go to California in a few weeks. Keeping up with the weeds has been an effort in our good soil! We have made a cutting of blooms from the flowers that we planted when we moved in and hung them up to dry. They made the whole house smell so nice!!!! Can't wait to see the fields next year in half bloom. Our fields will look like the pictures!