We are a lavender and honey farm. We are nestled in the Cumberland gap area right in the Powell Valley of Eastern Tennessee. 324 Pierce Rd Speedwell, TN 37870 providing fresh raw honey and wonderful natural skincare products.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Interesting lavender research
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.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
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.
