Lavender Bud Denuding

Today I harvested the rest of the Provence and the second Grosso plant. Two more Grosso plants and I will be done with this year’s lavender harvest. I love the smell of lavender in the house. As I was getting the Provence ready to hang to dry, Dave walked into the kitchen. “Sure smells good in here.” Since he’s the head cook here at Happy Acres, he makes the majority of the good kitchen smells. It was nice that today he got to enjoy some without any work on his part!

Now to removing the buds of the Sharon Roberts that I hung to dry almost three weeks ago. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I took Soil to Sachet, an online class on growing lavender from Labryinth Hill a while back. In addition to teaching a class on how to grow lavender, she also has different ways to use lavender and also how to remove the buds. Here is her bud denuding device which I tried and it really works! However, mine is not quite as pretty as hers.

my lavender bud denuder!

But if you don’t have the time, space, or desire to grow and debud your own lavender, Susan is taking orders for hers now at Labryinth Hill. I’ve bought some in the past and it’s so wonderful to get it fresh from the farm.

Here are my buds from yesterday.

Lavender buds

While out harvesting lavender on the slope garden, I picked a few daisies, coneflowers, and gloriosa daisies to bring inside and enjoy. Did I mention that the gloriosa daisies have pretty much taken over one area of the slope garden? Dave had started several plants which I planted last year in one area and now they are not just in that area but even in the iris holding area. But they are so pretty and I’m happy to see them in that garden.

It’s been so much fun harvesting our lavender. I’m looking forward to using it in soap and other projects later on this year.