6/4/2024
Back in April I talked about the initial planting of the Lavender Bed. Quite a bit of change has happened since then. When we finished, we had planted 37 plants that we had acquired from multiple places.
We spent most of May 25th working in the lavender bed. Linda ran landscape fabric over the existing rows and we planted three more. This brings the total up to 60 plants. This will likely all that gets planted this year.
Last December Linda started some plants from seed. This has been a learning experience for both of us. I don’t remember how many she started, but eight made it into the ground.
It’s hard to get a good picture, that said, the picture above are the ones started from seed. Six total and since planted they have doubled in size.
They whole project has been a learning experience. After the area had been tilled up and smoothed out, I did a drainage test. Nothing more than pouring a bunch of water on the bed and seeing how fast it drained. The water drained pretty rapidly which lead us to believe we could plant in regular flat rows and not have any drainage issues. As a reminder, lavender likes well drained soil. The most common cause of a lavender plant dying is root rot.
Then the soaker hose broke and flooded an area. The ground became very saturated and didn’t really dry out when the much welcomed spring rain came in May.
After the area dried up enough to work, we turned most of the flat rows into a more or less banked row. We had to transplant most of the plants in the first two rows. All but one has survived.
Here are a couple of pictures from today.
I almost forgot to talk about the buckwheat. A friend gave us a pound of seed that he didn’t need. The seeding instructions basically said to broadcast the seed over the desired area. I did so not knowing what to expect. These things took off and the bees are all over it.
The honey from buckwheat is supposed to be really dark and a taste similar to molasses. I’m eager to see what kind of results we get.
Overall, we think we are making great progress. More to come later.
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