Tag Archives: lavender

That which we left behind

Ginny Projects, ,

The year is almost over and we are now looking back to see how we did in 2019. What did we do right and what missed the mark. There is a lot to talk over. We made quite a few changes and additions to Tiny House Farm, but there were more than a few things that got left behind.

My calendula was ignored this year and we paid the price. It started with the huge mistake we made by sowing our seeds and then covering them with straw for protection.

This was what we had in fall 2018, more straw than calendula. It was a sad and sorry site. But I really did not have time to fret about it, or even worse, time to weed the rows. The shiitakes had to come first. And of course, Ron and I spent a good deal of time working on our micro greens. They are a very “hands on” crop to grow.

MOULTRIE DIGITAL GAME CAMERA

This is June 2019 and you can barely make out our garlic growing next to my bed of weeds. The bright yellow blossoms of the calendula cannot be seen at all.

In August I forced myself to find time to harvest what I could of the flowers. I had actually started gathering the seeds and ended up with a good supply of those. The flowers beckoned me and this is what I collected. I thought I would have time to get more over the next few days, but I did not advise Ron of my future plans.

He, knowing we needed to knock the weeds down before winter hit, mowed everything down. Now that he is retired, he has more time to spend on the farm. We are definitely going to work on our communication. I cannot have him slaughtering my flowers again next year.

Our elderberries were also ignored for the most part this year.

I hope the birds and deer on Tiny House Farm enjoyed the bounty this year. Next year, shiitakes be damned, I will get my share first. I managed to harvest about 10 pounds. A sad amount compared to last year when I was struggling to find space in my freezer to stash bags and bags of berries. I think I will have to set a reminder in my calendar so I don’t let the time get away from me. Though we do not yet have a plan to make and sell yummy elderberry jelly; letting the birds get all the berries is not a good thing. I can foresee a netting system in the near future. It will be a good trial run for our future rows of juneberries.

I was particularly annoyed at the deer as I noticed more and more of the brackens missing. I was thinking that Ron’s cousins needed to get busy getting rid of them. Then it dawned on me. Those apparently chewed off branches; I had been harvesting our elderberries.

Our lavender also was forgotten for most of the season. The three of us had worked hard getting it pruned in early spring and filling in new plants were the older ones had died. Then one Saturday we noticed some missing plants. And I found

a dozen plants pulled out of the ground. I set them into a plastic lid and poured in water. Getting them back in the ground would have to wait a bit. The shiitakes again were most important. But we did want to know just what had pulled them out. We set up a game camera on the edge of the field. The lousy weather prevented us from getting a good shot, but we got the proof needed. We have a foggy video of the actual crime. The blasted crows just walked around and yanked the lavender plants out. I don’t know why, but maybe they were hoping for fresh bugs from our digging? We replanted and this time put one of our marking flags with each plant. Hoping that it would keep the crows away. It seemed to have done the trick as no more plants were yanked out.

In mid-August I went out and harvested some of the lavender. I know, I know. I should be doing this earlier in the year. By the time I got out there most of the flowers had opened and you are supposed to get them before that happens. We hate to cut them too soon though. The bees really love the flowers and we enjoy watching them move through our field. Ron especially likes seeing the bumblebees. This even after he discovered that these bees do actually sting.

I laid it all on a drying rack and waited for Mother Nature to do it her thing. We bought this rack system a few years ago just for this purpose. It was very easy to set up and didn’t take up too much room. It is longer than I thought it would be so we will have to hang it up on a higher beam next year. We just slapped it up this time and the bottom rack was just inches off the floor. It did the trick though. I ended up with a quart jar full of dried lavender. And a small bowl of dried calendula. I took this with me to the MV Garlic Fest so folks could see, touch and smell it. Most people enjoy having the chance to actually see or hold the special ingredients in your products.

Obviously things have to change if we are going to see any benefit from our “other than shiitakes” products. This might include my gathering a few friends for a weeding (great fun) party and then later for harvesting events. If I promise there will be no rock picking, I am sure I can count on at least one friend. And she knows who she is.

Battered and bruised

Our 3 Acres, ,

Wet, exhausted, dirty. And hungry. And it turns out, bug bit. But more about that later. That is how I ended my Mother’s Day 2018.  Ron had big plans this year and the festivities started on Thursday May 10th when Jo, Ron and I headed out to THF after work.  Now that winter had finally released its grip on Upstate NY it was time  to start our lavender planting process.   Last year we laid out two extra panels of the landscape cloth.  This in prep for our 2018 planting.  First step was melting holes in the landscape cloth. As it was just the three of us, Ron had to come with up a plan for us to use the blow torch.  When we did this last year, we were six people strong.  Luckily, he is very good at finagling things.

He used his favorite thing; bungie cords to attach a propane tank to the log hauling rack we bought a few years ago.  Then he hooked up the blow torch and strapped that down.   It was amazing how well this part of the project went.  Six rows with 19 holes each and we were done in just under two hours.

Friday we headed back out again after work to drill the holes we needed.  Why are we drilling the holes, you ask?  Because we have lots of rocks on THF.  Check out the picture I posted on our Instragram  page.

Jo really loves digging out rocks.   She is just like her Uncle John, simply does not want to leave rocks were they are.    And this is where the bruising came in.  The drill we were using had a 3 inch auger attached and it was a beast to work with.  As I was not at all familiar with how strong the thing was; my knees, shins and wrists got a beating.  And we also had to deal with the auger deciding not to stay locked in.  After it fell out for about the 10th time, we took it as a sign and packed it in for the night.

That turned out to be a  mistake.  Saturday was a rainy, chilly day.  We never did make it out to THF.   I made soap in the morning, re-potted 80 of our lavender starts and got a few of the normal life things done while we waited and hoped for better weather.  Just after noon, Ron decided that he was calling it.  This day was a bust.  And then it dawned on me – the next day was Mother’s Day and he was going to do it to me again.  The tradition of hard, outside work on the day I should be pampered by him and Jo was once again going to happen.  He gets me every year.

Ron and I headed out Sunday morning.  It was a beautiful day and we hoped to get everything done in quick order.  While we were able to get the lavender planted easily in the newly drilled holes, things got harder once they were done.  We now had to re-drill the holes from last year.  Now we really wished that that we stuck it out longer on Friday night.  The day started to really drag.  It was hotter and buggier that I liked.  We slogged on determined to get it done.  We were working on the last row when, thank goodness Jo arrived just after 2 pm to help out.

Now we had to water the blasted plants.  That involved the 4 wheeler, water tank and wagon. Jo and Ron got that set up and filled while I finished planting the last few lavender.  It was a nice surprise that I had guessed just right with the number needed.

The watering process was, shall we say interesting.  There was no way to regulate the strength of the water flow.  It was full blast or nothing.  Am not sure our new plants enjoyed getting their first drink of water this way.  It was such a relief when we were finally done.  Now we just had to put everything away and head home.

It doesn’t look like much right now, but in a month or so we will have a lot more green and lots of blossoms.  Ron is looking forward to the invasion of the bumblebees too.  They really love the lavender.

I did not forget that I promised some info about my getting bug bit.  Turns out I am suddenly allergic to black fly bites.  They nailed me at least 3 times even though I had sprayed with bug spray.  They got me on each cheek and the neck.  Monday morning I woke up to my right ear being red, itchy and swollen.  By Tuesday I was so done with the burning itch that I headed to urgent care for help.  I am better now, but will take more serious precautions when working on Our 3 Acres.  Ron has even ordered us a couple of fishing hats.  Again I will be styling while on THF.  I cannot wait.

On a sad note, our farmer friend, Dick Crane has died.  Ron and he always had a great time talking together and he was fascinated by THF.  Every wild thought or idea Ron had, Dick was on board with.  He knew everyone in the area so Ron would reach out to him and ask if he knew a guy who could do this or that.  Dick was such a great help to us with his big machines, especially when we had to set up our outhouse.   He would stop by the farm anytime he had a spare moment just to see what was new.  We will really miss him.

 

 

 

Ginny’s been busy

Ginny Projects, , , ,

Learning all sorts of new things.  It is not as easy as saying; Hey I am going to make and sell natural skin care products. The number of decisions that have to be made are mindboggling. The how-to info is out there and that is the easy part. Well, easy enough once you decide what type of products you want to make. No matter what you want to make, there is a basic recipe for each item. Oils, butters, and wax are the baseline ingredients and the process is great, fun science; but there is a lot more involved. First you have to decide what kind oil you want to use. Each oil adds something different to your product. Then you have to decide if you want to try Infusing your oil choice with any number of herbs. That takes time. A month at least, though you can do this in just a few hours using a crockpot or double boiler. I prefer using the slow method and have my jars lined up alongside our wood stove.

And I had to get myself more organized too. Every jar needs a label and date. The only oil you can easily identify is coconut. And this only after it cools down and started to solidify again. I have calendula infused olive, coconut and sunflower oil. Lavender olive oil which I did use in making a batch of lavender soap. One jar of comfrey infused olive oil to try using in salves. And calendula infused coconut oil. Lots of things to play with. Ron added to the mix by having a friend at work who raises goats. Which is why we are making goat’s milk calendula soap.
And then there is the stuff you have to buy. You can find some of it in the grocery store and maybe can find something to use as a mold in your house, but there is so much out there now that you can be overwhelmed by the choices. I decided to go with simple loaf molds as I wanted to make bar soap. But even with that, I still have to decide what type/style of mold and what size. You also need molds or tins for lip balms, lotion bars and salves. You have to find sources for your supplies. Beeswax and lye are not easily found on store shelves. Ron found a guy on Ebay selling 8 pounds of beeswax for a good price and ordered it for me. It came in big chunks which were not going to be easy to work with.  So I melted it down, filtering through cheesecloth and poured it into smaller molds. Time consuming but it made it much easier for later projects.

So, you have made the soap and then have more decisions. How are you going to cut it into neat bars and where will you store it during the curing time? Which is at least 4 weeks. The longer your soap cures, the better. And you have to plan accordingly. This is not something you can decide on December 1st that you want to make soap as Christmas presents.
Ron made an executive decision and decided that I needed a fancy shmancy soap cutter, and I have to admit that it really does a great job. But I don’t feel the same happiness using it as I did with the cutter my friend Josi made me. With my longer loaf molds, I end up with 10 even slices. A good number to work with. As to the curing process, that issue was solved when Ron came home with two metal shelf sets. I combined all the shelves to make one unit, so now I have shelves to hold my soaps, lotion bars and assorted supplies. Time for a happy dance.

Another issue any soap maker has is keeping tracking of when the soap was sliced so you will know when it can be used. All of my soaps are the same so I cannot ID each batch by just looks. I stumbled across a suggestion of putting small stickers on one bar from each batch and have a list with sticker color and date. A simple solution to my problem is keeping a spread sheet with weekly weights of each bar.
Now you have your cured soap or lotion bars and you need to make yet another decision. How to package and label it. Again, the choices are endless. Ron pulled on his graphic designer hat and came up with a great design. We are going to have the same basic label for all of our products;  just changing it as needed. He also found a terrific company to make the stick-on labels for us. We highly recommend you check out Stickermule for any label needs. With our soap, we not only have a wrap-around label but we actually wrap the bar itself. It looks a bit more put together and will protect the soap from any bashing about.
All of this has been a real adventure for me as there is so much to learn. And it has been re-enforced that you really do need to read your recipe or directions. And pay attention. Last week I tackled lip balm. Ron wanted to get the labels ordered, but I told him to wait until I had done a couple of runs at it. So, I divided my recipe in half and got everything melted together. Then I discovered that the tubes I was planning to use for this batch did not fit properly with the tube tray I bought. They were longer and thinner. I did not want to use the tubes that came with the tray. They hold the same amount by weight, but they look under filled. Not a good selling point. Once the balm had hardened, I pulled one out to try. Major disaster. The thing was rock hard and I could not figure out why.  More oil was the obvious solution, but how did I get the recipe so wrong?  Driving to work the next day it hit me. I had misread the beeswax conversion from tablespoons to ounces and had doubled the amount needed. Glad I figured it out, but annoying nonetheless.
The second batch was much better, but I still need to figure out the best way to use the tray I have.

I already have a good recipe for lotion bars and those are something you can quickly whip together.  Bonus being they are ready to go within a few hours. The issue I have with those are getting the weight right.  Each bar needs to weigh at least 1.5 ounces.  I am using 12 individual molds and it is annoyingly difficult to put each one on my scale and then pour the hot mixture in to in.  Moving the just filled molds without spilling is tricky.  After I have made a few more dozen, I should have a solid routine down pat.

The most luxurious product I make is a calendula body cream.  It is also my problem child.  Because it is made with water it does not have the shelf life of items made with oils.  I have to add a preservative and then make it shortly before I am going sell it.  But people who have tried it, really like it.

We are really looking forward to seeing how well these products sell at the events we attend this year. Ron is still focused on the shiitakes, but having something non perishable to sell too could be a major game changer.  It is going to be a fun year.

Here I am using something I had around the house with my soap making.  Goat’s milk soap will darken if you keep it warm longer so I put the molds in a box and cover with a towel.  Murphy loves helping me out by adding her warmth to the process.   Who says cats can’t be helpful?