4/22/2024
The last time we talked about the lavender bed was back on April 7th. Colter’s Tree Service had removed all of the major brush, but nothing had been done since. Don’t get me wrong, this was a major accomplishment. There was a ton of work left to do before it was ready to plant.
Linda had called everyone we knew that had a tractor hoping that they would have a plow. It was a small area and I wasn’t sure a tractor would have enough maneuvering room to actually get it plowed. Well as it turned out, nobody we knew had both a tractor and plow.
I started poking around the dirt and found it to be looser than expected. Of course nothing had grown there for 50+ years except for cedar trees and other underbrush. This led me to idea of using a rototiller to break the ground up.
Once again, Linda was calling people and finally asked a person we go to church with. She is a little fireball who does a lot of things. She said that she was in the process of buying a different rototiller but once she knew it worked she would be happy to help. Big load off our minds!
Linda and I spent most of the 18th raking up surface debris and hauling it down to the woods. It was more work than expected.
At around noon on the 19th, she and some of our other church friends arrive. We started working right away and it took a little over two hours to get it tilled up. We were working so hard that we forgot to take any pictures. We do have one of the results.
The big area tilled was about 16 by 16 feet. Not huge, but big enough for us to get started. A smaller area was about 8 by 8, small but workable.
We spent too much time trying to decide on which way to run the rows either perpendicular to the barn or parallel. We decided parallel would be the best.
Another issue was plant and row spacing. Lots of experts opinions, which mostly didn’t really mesh together. We settled on 2 feet between plants and 3 feet row between the rows.
In preparation, we had been buying lavender plants from different sources. In total, we had 37 plants to get in the ground.
On Monday the 22nd, we started getting the plants in the ground. It was fun yet it was still real work. It took most of the morning to finish planting.
They look small in the pictures, but are good sized in person.
The last task for the day was getting the plants soaked in. Many, many years ago I bought some soaker hose and had rolled it up on a old spool. We laid it out and surprisingly enough it still worked. There were a couple of mouse holes that I cut out and repaired.
Not bad for being 25+ years old. There is a couple of small holes to be fixed, no big deal.
After the first of next month, we hope to get at least 16 more plants.
Next year, this bed should provide the bees a good place to obtain nectar especially as other sources will be tapped out
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