“What do you do with the lavender? I meant to be harvesting it?”, asked @tarazkp recently who also has some in his garden. Lavender happens to be quite a useful plant besides being pretty, purple, and having lovely fragrance. It has many calming and healing properties, and it is good for both, external and internal consumption. As my six plants don’t yield huge amounts of the plant material, I can’t think of trying out the essential oil making just yet using the distillation process which I find fascinating. Maybe someday. I hope. There are however other ways to make lavender oil that I might give a go this year besides the other project that I have in works that I will keep as a secret for now. For sauna goers, lavender flower pillows for face can transform the experience, as well as lavender-infused body scrubs, balms, oils, soap, and butter. Oh my, if only I had the field amount of the material! Sometimes I use my dried lavender as a herbal tea by pouring boiling water over it and let it steep for a while as well.
Collecting and drying lavender does not hurt even if you haven’t figured out the right use for it for you yet. It is pretty easy to store too. I cut mine, bundle it up, and hang it to dry. Except, last year as I was in a hurry to harvest it at the last minute. There is quite a difference with the timing of harvesting too. When harvesting late, more of the flowers have opened and fall off the stems. Some sources also say unopened buds hold a lot more of the oil than fully bloomed flowers.
This year I decided to follow the advice to harvest early and as @generikat mentioned in her post as soon as about a couple of flowers on each stem open. So I grabbed my scissors and trimmed my plants a fair amount. I did not harvest it all as I wanted to leave some for bees who seem to be ruling the lavender this time around. Years before bumblebees and butterflies pushed the bees away to feed on other flowers and the blooming peppermint or so it seemed.
Song of the day: Deep Purple - Burn
Ah! Your lavender harvest is beyond glorious! I would so love to know what cultivar that is? It looks like one of the lovely French varieties like Grosso. It also looks like you are going to have plenty of fragrant buds for all of your lavender crafting desires:)
One of my favorite lavender things that I make is a bath tea. I get oversize tea bags and put whole organic powdered milk, colloidal oatmeal, Epsom salt, lavender essential oil, and my lavender buds in the tea bag, seal it, and throw it in a hot bath for a soak of champions. Sometimes I steep it and add the steeped water too, it just depends on my mood, lol. Your bath tea reference reminded me of that:)
Thanks for sharing all that lavender loveliness!
I wish I could tell you for sure which kind it is, but unfortunately me being silly back in the day when I planted them I did not pay much attention to it. I could maybe try to find the pots they came in and see if they still have a sticker with some information. I was never successful to grow lavender from seeds and therefore bought seedlings. It does look a lot like grosso, but then I tried to look at many pictures of different varieties and I am unsure.
Oh my goodness! That sounds absolutely wonderful! Must feel great to take such bath! I wonder if I can get empty teabags here, might have to order from abroad, but that gives me a lot of ideas for different herbal tea mixtures too. Another alternative perhaps could be making little bags from linen to put the bath mixture in there, maybe that could be even reusable. So cool!
Aww thank you so much for your awesome comment Kat! hugs
Lol! I don’t think that’s silly at all! Sometimes I’m so caught up in the moment of planting or transplanting things that I forget about record keeping.
I know people who use linen and unbleached cotton bags for their bath teas, I can’t wait to hear about your future bath tea experiments with some of that glorious lavender!
Hugs right back at you:)
How come your lavender looks so awesome with long and full stems and mine looks like crap? What kind of lavender are you growing?
Yea, I noticed yours is a different kind. I am not entirely sure as I don't remember and kind of regret of not paying attention to it back then, but I think it is one many types of Lavandula angustifolia xD And how is your lavender looking like crap, can lavender look like crap at all ahaha?
Well compared to yours, mine look like lavenderella's ugly step sister.
I will have to see how they go next year.
" lavenderella's ugly step sister" bursts in laughter xD
I am sure they will :)
Kat says it looks a lot like Grosso actually and the more I look at the pictures of it the more I think she might be right. I will try to find the pots they came in though to see if there is some leftovers from the sticker with information.
My lavender plants died after about seven or eight years in a big pot outside; I don't know if that's normal. I miss them though.
I used to dry them and put some in my dresser drawers to keep the folded clothes smelling nice.
Also, I would also sprinkle some into my pillow case to aid in REM sleep. Don't know if it worked, but I did have a lot of sweet dreams... :>)
It could be normal. It depends on what kind of variety you had, for example, English lavender can last over ten to fifteen years and some other kinds only a few years.
Ahaha, did you know that back in the old days that is how they kept the clothes fresh for all the aristocrats and stuff? xD I learned that last year visiting one fancy castle in Northern Ireland, the guide was so enthusiastic.
Yep, lavender is pretty effective for better sleep. I use the oil though.
I don't remember the variety of lavender that died, but fortunately I remained alive :>)
The idea to put lavender in my drawers I think came from remembering my mother using little bags of flowers (sachet?) that way. Now that I don't have the flowering plant, I use an oil as well.
Have a sweet smelling day @m31
Oh I do wish your post could allow a sniff! Finally! It looks like you collected some pretty nice lavender! I'm so happy for you. The smell must be divine, I have a soft spot for lavender! It's great for sleep. Maybe you could add it in your bath salts. It would be so cool to breathe the smell of lavender while relaxing
I'm planning to harvest some more over next couple of days. The scent is the strongest when freshly cut, I brought it in my room and hanged it to dry and my entire place was filled. It makes me so happy. I also use some lavender essential oil on my pillowcase from time to time and it is so soothing and helps to relax.
Great idea about bath salts! I should try it.
Ah your room is now the best place to be in. You should be proud of your first harvest! Lavender is great❤️
So happy to see that you are still active :) I haven't been on the site in forever, but i went back to steemit, everything had changed for the worse. So now i am trying out hive. I am just about to finish my Masters, so i wanted to get back into the community here.
Interestingly enough i might start working in a startup where we will be doing vertical farming, so it is lovely seeing plant related posts. Lavender is such a fragrant flower, it can almost become too powerful for me. I hope you'll have a big enough harvest to do essential oils at one point, and if you do, please do a video on it! I would love to see that.
Hope you're doing well
Oh heeey! Long time no see! Yea everything on Steem kind of fell apart since Tron acquired Steemit and tried to take the entire network. Most people migrated here and since then everything seems a lot better and moving in the right direction with Hive.
So cool, finishing Masters seems like a big deal. Glad to hear about your plans to get back to the community, yay! ^^
Yea, I looked into the distilling process, it would be so cool to try it, and get that device that looks a bit like from a sci-fi movie or an engine room of a ship for some reason xD If I get to plant a field of lavender, I for sure will give all kinds of fun things a go and experiment making stuff out of them. 6 plants are not enough though, but I have something I am dying to post about soon, so there's that :)
Yep, I am doing pretty well. How about you?
That sounds awesome!
Yeah, it is awesome to finish my masters, but i am also really looking forward to being done. My thesis partner fell ill with covid, and had to go to the hospital for 14 days, so we had to postpone our hand in. So now i just really wanna hand it in!
Are stills legal where you are from? I thought they were kinda iffy because you can also use them to make alcohol?
I am doing well i would say. I have a big decision to make when it comes to changing jobs, but i am working on figuring that out. In 2 months, it should be a lot more quiet :)
Ah! So sorry to hear about your thesis partner! I had covid visiting my home too, 3 members of my family got it, it was really hard to stay safe and healthy during that time, but because of some miracle I got by without getting ill or even if I did get it, it was so mild that I mostly didn't even notice. It was, however, very stressful as I was taking care of one of them. All the sanitation madness was a bit too much for me.
Good question, I would probably need some sort of permit to have such device, but I am not sure yet, have to research a bit more.
Hope to see you posting soon! :)
Yeah, it was pretty bad! I didn't experience any symptoms either, but i did go into quarantine after he went to the hospital. I suspect i must have had it at that point, as i was trapped in a small room with him for weeks before he got it.
I really hope your family is okay now?
Your lavenders are very pretty with lovely purple color! Oh! I wish I can smell the sweet fragrance from the photos.
Ah! I just learned from your post that the lavender has many benefits apart from beauty. That's really great!
The bumblebees and butterflies are very magnificent. It's very kind of you to leave some lavenders to feed them.
Beautiful photos! Great capture! Thanks so much for sharing. ;)
Hehe, I am glad you found this post educational, you know this is how I learn about many of these things myself as well. By posting and figuring out what is what, what stuff is good for what. It is a fun learning process :)
Ah yea, I just would feel bad to take all of it away from them as they seem to enjoy it a lot.
Thank you for your kind words @tangmo!
You're welcome!
Ah! I absolutely agree with you, "it is a fun learning process", indeed. ;)
Natural Lavender from the plant is my most favourite smell. I love it. I like it in soaps and stuff as well but not in the same way as when its in the garden. Looks like you got a good harvest this year. I would love to see one of those Lavender farms that I've only seen in photographs, where the fields are nothing but long lines of purple flowers. Very beautiful. I've also always been facinated with distilling. I made vodka once from a homemade still. Never essential oils though
Same here, love the scent so much! Can never have enough of it :)
I would love a field like that one day myself and working with lavender seems like such a blessing and all the stuff that can be crafted from it, I would love trying it all.
Ahaha maybe one can make lavender vodka too xD Nah, I am not entirely sure, but that might be illegal here. I still have to look into it and find out if I could potentially have my hands on such device in the future if I do end up being lucky to have lavender fields and could make the essential oil. Probably would have to get some sort of permit.
You got a really nice harvest of lavender! Also amazing shots.
Lavender has at least the benefit of having a pleasant smell.
Thank you @apsu! :) And that smell is the best is my absolute favorite! It is also fun to observe all the flying thingies who enjoys lavender as much as I do. Some people have aquariums with fish, I have lavender with bees, butterflies and bumblebees :D
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Aww, thank you so much @tibfox! Much appreciated! :)
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