Website is Live!
So Jesse Dill (TheVineStudios.com) built our website, and got it up and live this week! Still needs a few changes... we have an "Our Story" page that we're still working on, and I need to get proper company email addrs set up. We are hoping to get a store set up on the website soon (selling fresh lavender bundles, dried bundles, lavender oil & hydrosol, culinary lavender buds, sachets, etc).
As for other status:
Of the 380 plants we received last month, we have the majority in the ground with automatic irrigation connected and running. The remaining plants are still in the driveway in their 2" flats, and we are (very) slowly getting them planted. We have rows/mounds in place (with weed cloth down, irrigation ready) for several hundred more, so we have room for expansion when the other plants we've ordered come in from the VanHevelingen nursery (https://www.facebook.com/VanHevelingenHerbNursery).
Carolyn and I took a break from planting and went to two separate local Lavender Festivals last Saturday, one out at Eagle Creek Lavender Farm and one at Barn Owl Nursery in Tualatin. That was fun... It was HOT (our first >100 day this year) but Eagle Creek Lavender Farm (eaglecreeklavender.com) was right on the river, and we enjoyed BBQ and live music while we watched people in their inflatables keeping cool, paddling down the river. The owners, Bill & Mary Jabs, collect and restore antique cars & trucks, so those were all on display.
At Barn Owl Nursery (barnowlnursery.com), Chris & Ed Mulder had lots going on with several booths set up selling all things lavender. Our friends Dan & Nicole from Norwood Farms Lavender (norwoodlavenderfarm.com) were there, and Dan was running his still, extracting oil from French Fields lavender. Dan has the same 5 gallon still I have, so I got lots of pointers on how to distill lavender. I'm hoping to get ours running this week.
The 280 plants that we planted 2015 are very healthy... We had first bud-break on our French Fields and Folgate lavender last week, and we expect the Royal Velvet and Pacific Blue lavender to follow suit this week. The Grosso lavender probably won't be ready to harvest for several more weeks.
We are Ready to Harvest!!!
Carolyn had planned to go out early this morning to start, but we had a quick rain shower, so that will have to wait for a few hours.
My sister Suzanne dropped off one of her bee hives on our property a couple of weeks ago. Her bees are happily out buzzing around the lavender every day, alongside some bumble bees that are coming from somewhere. That will be fun to enjoy some of her honey!
Anyway, that's our current life on our little farm…
