Lockwood Lavender Farm: Our love of Lavender

Sunday, June 12, 2011

I have been feeling so guilty for a couple of weeks about not blogging. But between opening our lavender market, planting lavender, flowers and other herbs, weeding and planning the Finger Lakes Lavender Festival I have found little time to do anything but fall into bed at night.

Here's our last two weeks in review. I think you will see just how busy we've been.

Our lavender market is now open on Saturday's and Sunday's from 9 - 3pm offering our lavender and honey products.

Butterflies everywhere.

Our Honey supply is limited this time of year so make sure you buy some before it's gone.

Butterflies! They are so important for pollinating our lavender. I thought I would honor them with a new theme in our market.

Come in and check out our new Finger Lakes Summer Survival Kit.

Our Skeeter Cheater All Natural Herbal Bug Repellent is back in stock. It contains NO DEET! and sells fast. Stop by the farm and pick up some before they (back flies, mosquitoes) do.

And if you forget our Skeeter Cheater stop the itch with Ahhh! for relief.

For gardener who like to get dirty try our Gardener's Herbal Hand Soap with Pumice and finger nail brush. It makes a great gift for the gardener in your family or friend. And our Gardener's Hand Cream with Shea Butter to help smooth those callus's.

New tables for the festival in the process of being painted.

For the longest time I have wanted to be a Master Gardener. And after 6 months of classes studying

Beneficial and harmful insects

Plant diseases

Integrated pest management (IPM)

I am one test away from becoming one. This corp of volunteers are trained by Cornell Cooperative Extension in the art of gardening and help with:

Answering horticultural inquiries on the telephone

Researching and answering letters

Writing articles about gardening

Setting up demonstration projects in public places

School gardens

Community improvement projects

Historic garden restoration

Horticultural therapy

Organizing plant sales and public events

County fair informational booths

Providing advice to customers at garden centers

Increasing awareness of integrated pest management, water quality conservation and other environmental issues.

I look forward to using this information to help my community and educate our visitors at the farm.

Hay!

Gary and I have always felt we should give back to our community. The last 2 weeks we have been selling lavender plants to benefit the Skaneateles Area Food Pantry. We were so impressed by how fast the plants sold. One gentleman buying 216 to plant on his property for his wedding next summer. So Sweet! The bride is one lucky girl! We will giving the Food Pantry a check for $1000 during the lavender festival.

Last Saturday we held one of our workshops on growing lavender. And despite the rain we had a wonderful turn out. Although we didn't get our hands dirty everyone seem to enjoy the day and our information on growing lavender successfully.

A comment from one of our workshop participants:

The workshop was informative and interesting and we really appreciated your sharing your successes and some of the things that should be avoided! Looking forward to coming out and cutting when the first lavender is ready. I'll be watching your blog.

On Wednesday we welcomed Innkeeper's from the Finger Lakes and Central New York area to visit our farm. Although it was a 94 degree day everyone enjoy the tour, lavender tea and sweet delights.

Just some of the Innkeeper's enjoying sweet delights and conversation.

Everyone went home with our Spirit Lavender Linen Spray.

The girls from Sweet Praxis baked these heavenly Lavender-Vanilla Mini Cupcakes and Lemon Macarons. And I made the Cheesecake and Lavender Fudge Strawberries. I promise to post the recipe for the Strawberries.

We are a week away from a few varieties of lavender ready to be picked. Follow us on Facebook and watch for updates on u pick dates available.

Dark Supreme will be available next weekend.

Buena Vista will also be available next weekend. It's beautiful fresh or dried.

Munstead and Folgate will be available next week. Munstead is great for culinary uses.

Gracie has had a tough week. She went to the Vet on Monday to be spade and came home with the cone of shame. She had to go back on Thursday because she wasn't drinking enough water and eating and needed an iv.

She's back to normal today wanting to so much to corral the sheep. She'll have to wait another week before she can enter the pasture.

This week we welcome the Manlius Herb Society, Onondaga Garden Club and Fairmont Garden Club to the farm to learn more about lavender. We look forward to their visit.

Their I finally completed a blog post. I feel so much better, but some how a little exhausted by reviewing my week. The Finger Lakes Lavender Festival is a month away! UGH!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Sequim Lavender Festival 2004

As I mention in my previous post my husband and I vacationed in the state of Washington in 2004. Our main purpose of our visit was to attend the Sequim Lavender Festival. This trip was our needed push to continue growing acres of different varieties of lavender and direct our farm as a agritourism business.

The Sequim Lavender Festival, held since 1996, has grown to include three days of lavender farm tours, community events, and a street fair. The tours allow you to get an up-close view (and smell!) of the blooming fields and to learn how the growers cultivate and use their lavender. Farms on the tour provide a variety of amenities and entertainment, including gift shops, food and crafts booths, live music, and U-pick lavender blooms. You will find lavender products of every kind at the street fair, from oils and lotions to lavender lemonade to sachets, wands and plants.

Sequim Lavender Farm

Jardin du Soleil Farm

It was a beautiful day. I only wished I took pictures of the street fair in town. I was to busy shopping.

Purple Haze Lavender Farm

Purple Haze Farm uses Oyster shells as a weed barrier to calcify the soil, conserve water, and reflect heat and light.

Workshops on making lavender wands and wreaths to demonstrations on distilling lavender oil were held on each farm.

You may wonder what makes Sequim's climate so special in growing lavender especially since it is just a ferry ride from Seattle. A city with a precipitation total of 37.07 inches a year. Sequim has its own banana belt with a rain fall of 15 - 17 inches a year.

Presently the festival is going through a transition with two organization holding two lavender festivals. One by the Sequim Lavender Growers Association and another by the Sequim Lavender Farmers Association. They were until recently one group but do to philosophical and administrative differences they have split and the event now has two festivals with two locations.

The evening took us to Angel Lavender Farm for a barn dance. The particles you see in the picture are from the lavender hanging in the barn. We met so many kind and wonderful people and danced the night away.

In the far corner of the barn you can see their debudding machine. This machine was original used to clean grain seeds. The now named "Jitterbug" sifts dirt from lavender buds.

When ever we travel we try to find a unique places to stay. This once horse stable had a beautiful apartment on the second floor overlooked beautiful, Dungeness Bay.

Our next stop is The Olympic National Park.

Mount Olympus receives over 200 inches of precipitation each year and most of that falls as snow. At 7,980 feet, Mount Olympus is the highest peak in Olympic National Park and has the third largest glacial system in the contiguous U.S.