Lavender Marathon

Today with both a thankful blessing and a sigh of relief, I harvested the last of our lovely lavender flowers at Wildcat Gardens. I am always a bit sad to see the lavender season end. However, the past four weeks have felt like a lavender marathon and it will be nice to slow down a bit. Ben and I grow around 500 bushes of Lavender angustifolia, both the Munstead and Hidcote varieties.  The bushes are scattered around the property, some planted in graceful terraces and others amongst other hardy mountain perennials in rowdy beds bursting with color and aromas. We grow over 40 different herbs here on the farm but lavender is my favorite herb child. It thrives without irrigation in Colorado’s arid environment; withstands our tough winters; short, hot summers and poor soil without any fuss. The abundant and hungry wildlife does not eat it, although I have witnessed groups of does lounging in the lavender like privileged princesses. But above all, lavender is so beautiful, fragrant, productive and useful. It fills my spirit every time I see it growing with such purple grace and unconcern in this rugged, mountain environment.

Ben, being the data man that he is, has already crunched the numbers for this season’s lavender harvest. We harvested over 260 pounds of lavender flowers and processed them into over 150 dried lavender bundles, dozens of floral smudge sticks, and our own essential oil and hydrosol. Last year we purchased a larger copper Alembic distiller, four times the size of our previous one. It is a nice upgrade, allowing more efficient use of our time and energy, plus it came with an ‘essencier,’ a complicated copper contraption that separates the oil from the hydrosol. Great! One less job for me to do. We set the distiller up on the patio next to the creek and pond, as we need the cool water for condensing the steam. It is a lovely set up, and we both enjoy the process. The yard and house have smelled divine for the past two weeks while we were distilling. Next week I will start bottling the essential oil and hydrosol. With the ‘big three’ harvests now complete (St. John’s wort, monarda and lavender flowers), the rest of our growing season will be a little more relaxed. I will be able to turn my focus to other chores that have been neglected in the lavender marathon, including blogging. To be continued…

May Day

Aria Seidl

May first is a snowy, wintery day here at Earthstar Farms. Us gardeners are always hopeful for a gentle un-frozen April and May, yet typically the spring months in the Rockies are when we get a wild diversity of warm sunshine, rain and heavy snowfalls. Even after thirteen years on this land, I still think that every big April snow must surely be the last.
 
Earth Day was a sunny warm day and I was happy to see our first hummingbird, abundant fruit tree blossoms, fat tulip buds and shiny new Aspen leaves of the season. The hummingbirds in particular are a harbinger of spring for us at Wildcat Gardens. These tiny, feisty birds fly all the way from Central America to the Rocky Mountains for the summer months. On Monday morning Ben put out the hummingbird feeders, and we harvested our first herbs, five big baskets of beautiful nettle leaf. We also spied the first tiny green seedlings of Calendula and fat purple asparagus stalks breaking through the soil. Rhubarb, catnip, garlic, spinach, sweet grass and other early greens also showed their spring vigor. The passionflower vines in the greenhouse are shooting up, their curling tendrils seeking purchase on the trellis. I felt my own energy quicken as I imagined the growing season ahead. It is a delightful, spring-fever surge.
 
However, on Friday we awoke to cold and snow, and it has not stopped for three days now. My spring-fever had me practically bouncing off the walls, until I settled into a grudging, then grateful acceptance. This snow (the fourth big one this April) is a gift of water, future growth and abundance. Although I do wonder how the hummingbirds cope with this much snow, we are grateful.