Lavender

I processed the lavender I pruned from Mum’s bushes in Helensburgh today.

There was mounds of it, so the first job was to separate the heads from the stalks and vegetation.  I did this outside because it was a lovely day and also to reduce the amount of mess.

While I was doing this I was visited by quite a large number of bees which luckily were more interested in the flowers than in me.  The huge pile reduced quite quickly down to a large bowl of the good bits.

Then I put them on mats and laid them in the garage where it is warm and dark to dry out.  There were way too many heads to dry them the traditional way by suspending them from the rafters.

Hopefully this will make a good few lavender bags and other scented goodies.

Then in the evening R and I went for a walk by the Eden.  Someone had done a good job of clearing some walkways through the vegetation without exterminating all the wild flowers.

We encountered some thistles though – and I have never seen so much thistledown in my life – when the wind blows those will be intruders spread into gardens for next year.