Summer at Penn Cove Ranch

This week we are finishing up the harvest of the remaining Angustifolia for drying and ultimately wreath making. We have cut and hung about 15000 bunches in all. The 250 Jean Davis white/pinkish plants produced almost 14 bundles per plant. The Hidcote and Twickel Purple were right around 12 per plant. We are pushing against our drying capacity although most are dry enough that we can remove them from the stands into boxes and ultimately make into wreaths and bouquets.

We have about two more days of fresh Hidcote left. After they begin to bloom we will distill them for oil and hydrosol.

I think the Lavandins are 2-3 weeks away from the fresh flower harvest. The Alba(white) looks further along and may be ready earlier than the Grosso and Super.

The days are beautiful and warm.

These bundles were shipped to Raleigh, NC. As you can see, the color (dark blue-purple) is very striking. Since the stems are 10-12 inches long, the flowers work best in a vase that is 5-8 inches tall (shown here in a galvanized bucket - 6 bundles total). Purchase Now! The window for this variety won’t last long.

The lavandins are making progress. We’re about 2-3 weeks away from selling the long-stemmed beauties online. These flowers are a deep violet with a fresh, sweet fragrance. Stay tuned!

The 2008 harvest of the English Lavender (angustifolia) should begin in three weeks or so. Harvest will be a little later this year due to the cold and wet winter on Whidbey Island.

The first fresh flower offered will be Twickle Purple, a medium length, (12-14″ stem) dark blue variety. This will be followed by several longer stemmed Lavandin varieties: Grosso, a versatile blue flower; Alba, a very unique white flowering lavender that works great in a floral arrangement; and an even longer stemmed blue lavender named Super. The season is short… only 8-9 days for each variety. Flowers ordered by 12PM PDT will be sent by 4PM that day. All flowers are picked fresh each morning and are all certified Organic. Each bunch will include 125-150 stems. Look for our on-line Lavender Festival beginning in July!

Later in August we will have completed drying the flowers and will begin making our signature wreaths and bouquets.

Our organic oil and floral water are soon to be added to the web site.

We are busy weeding. The lavender was sleeping but not the weeds.

The beginning of Fall marks the end of the lavender year. The lavender plants will take a much needed rest. It has been a wonderfully productive year. As usual, we discovered things that we didn’t know. We also confirmed that we have been blessed with talented and dedicated associates. Nothing would have happened had it not been for Alex, Mario, Javier, their father, Ramon, and Alex’s wife, Lorena. Joannie and Soon worked in the harvest and then constructed the beautiful wreaths and bouquets. Nick and Dale were always there when I needed them. Dan gave us great turn around with the GCMS results.

A real bonus for me and Susan was getting to work with our children. Teresa continued to display not only her creative talents as chief product designer but her scientific skills as well. She organized the final steps of distillation and created a very sophisticated data base to help us collect and analyze distillation results. She was the catalyst for the wreaths. Katie functioned as the business manager. She set up the blog and of course the new web site. She designed the new label and all the marketing collateral material. She is as thorough at follow up as anyone I have observed in almost 40 years of business. Michael held the Ranch together until he had to return to LA. He did some early, helpful research with Hydrosol. Lindsay and Billy helped us modify some very tortured paragraphs.

The new still was a Godsend. We had 100 distillations and collected over 550 lbs of oil. The old distillation setup would have required over 500 distillations. Since each distillation takes about 2 hours; it is not hard to see its contribution and necessity.

Penn Cove Ranch as a family business took shape. We sold fresh flowers through a distributor to markets all over the Puget Sound. We have national and regional buyers for our organic lavender oil. We are selling buds, bouquets, and wreaths via our web site. We are expanding our wreath capabilities. We are also exploring the development of a home spa kit using all of our ingredients. I am going to Expo East in Baltimore this week to start that process.

We had a personally productive year in other ways. Teresa and Adam brought a baby girl, Zooey, into the world. Three weeks later Lindsay and Manuel followed with Lucia. Children and parents are well. Grandparents are overjoyed. Adam defends his Phd thesis this Friday at the University of Oregon. Shortly thereafter he, Teresa, and Zooey will head off to Denver where he will do a post doctorate with the National Renewable Energy lab as a new Physicist! After three long years Michael was called back to American Airlines. He fortunately is now assigned to LA, his home and will fly MD-80s from there.

Agriculture has its own unique appeal. It can be rewarding and devastating. It is science and art as well. I try and read all I can about lavender. The amount of contradictory advice is often amusing and at the same time unsettling. The time between making a decision and seeing if it was the right decision is most likely 12 months. I am certain that most of my experience is still in front of me.

We all look forward to what the Spring will bring with awakened lavender.

After months of hard-work, we are thrilled to announce the launch our new website. The site features our beautiful lavender wreaths, bouquets and buds with the ability to purchase products online (a first for us). We also added a more in-depth section about our family & farm that includes an easier-to-use photo gallery and nice description of Our Story. In the upcoming months, we hope to add new products, such as wreaths for Christmas and Valentine Day, as well as additional interesting content about the farm. The lavender plants may be dormant through the fall and winter… but we are still busy bees!

- Katie

Photo: My father and me after the harvest a few years ago.

Saturday was a great day. We had a couple of revelations that should really benefit us next year. We used the Japanese tea harvester on the Twickel with great success. We had shied away from it because it does not do a very good job of shaping plants, especially the smaller ones. Alex, Mario, and Dale harvested 900 Twickel plants in the first hour. This compare to a normal productivity on plants this size of about 30-50 plants per hour per person! We have concluded that we should use the harvester on the larger plants and then clean up the uncut stems by hand. It should reduce the labor component by at least 40%!

Dale distilled the first tub and made 115 ozs of oil. Then the fun began. The bags that collect the cut lavender have always been somewhat problematic. They are easily torn and sometime shredded by the woody lavandin stems. After the morning harvest both bags were inoperable. The holes were too big to ignore. Dale then took Susan’s sewing machine and sewed up both bags! We were back in business.

Dale leaves for a 5 day trip to London to visit his sister on Tuesday. Hopefully he will return next summer. We should finish up the harvest next week end. We have about 1000 plants remaining. Yesterday we were only able to run two tubs due to the bag issues. The second harvest of the angustifolia is still an unknown. The Buena Vista is rallying. All others are still dormant.

The web site is near opening. We also have oil samples out to several people. Progress advances on all fronts.

Last week we were blessed by the arrival of Zooey Madelyn Halverson! Teresa gave birth to a very healthy little girl. Susan is in Eugene this week end helping out and getting to know her first grand child. Number two is just around the corner as Lindsay is due to deliver in mid-September. Pictures to follow….

The last several weeks at the Ranch have been spent cleaning harvest tools and the barns. Dale stripped 400+ pounds of buds from the remaining Provence bundles that were being dried. We have 1000 pounds still in inventory. Less than last year as we decided to turn much of the Provence harvest into oil. We are still waitng to harvest our Twickel. Alex, Mario and Javier Tenorio have been unavailable the last two weeks. The harvest and distillation should happen next Saturday. Year-to-date we have have about 220 kgs of oil. I am guessing we will distill another 20-50 kgs depending on the second harvest of the Angustifolia. My goal was 240 kgs or about 600 lbs of oil. All varities were chemically tested. Interesting is the fundamental difference between the Angustifolia and the Lanvandin. Lavandin contains quantities of Eucalyptol and Camphor and the Angustifolia does not. The aroma is much different and each has different product applications.

This was our first year selling fresh flowers. We sold over 1200 bunches. It was a good start and we learned a lot that should translate into a much bigger effort next year.

We are identifying potential users of our Hydrosol. We have collected and stored 1000+ gallons. I felt our later, lower temperature distillations produced a more aromatic hydrosol. Generally the amount of oil remaining in the hydrosol after distillation is so small it will be hard to confirm my suspicions.

The web site should go live in the next several weeks. We have several hundred beautiful wreaths and dried bundles in inventory. Katie has been working very hard to get the site and store up and running. She will firm up the product offerings this week. Our long term goal is to develop and offer a Home Spa product line. We are working behind the scene with a consultant to help us create our own unique and complimentary scent for each product in the lineup. Our time table calls for the first product to be ready for Christmas. We are all excited about the possibilities.

The boiler from hell. Doug and Bruce installed the final necessary piece on the boiler. It is the exhaust vent to the heavens. I am worried that it looks so much like the landing beacon for the Oak Harbor Airport that we may start getting unwanted traffic. It looks like other things too! We will paint it the color of the house trim at the end of the season. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow have and will be spent cleaning out the barns, The stable and hallway were finished yesterday. The insemination (cow) barn is in process of getting a face lift.

The bee man arrived today and stirred up the bees. Work stopped in that area. He says he will harvest next week. His reliability factor is low but I am hopeful. He would make no prediction on the potential size of the harvest. That has not given me confidence.

Six days straight and about 300 hours of labor and we have harvested 10,000 Grosso plants. Right now it looks like 200+ lbs. of oil (100 quarts). I am not sure what my specific expectation was for the grosso by itself; but with half the plants it produced the same amount of oil as the Angustifolia. And it should. I think we will come close to our goal of 600 lbs. Dale ran the still all week end. We had a loose electrical connection at the junction box that threw everyone for a loop. Luckily Doug Nixon, our boilermaker, was in the area and was able to trace the source of the problem. We have been blessed with competent tradesmen.

We have about 2000 Twickel plants as the last of the Lavandin to harvest. I am guessing they will be ready on Saturday. We will spend the next couple of weeks strpping the dried lavender bunches for buds and counting the days until our second harvest of the Angustifolia.

The Grosso we harvested today presented its own unique set of problems. Another 18″ between plants would have made it a lot easier. I will speak with the grower! The oil is flowing. Dale has been distilling batches of 160 ozs and more. After tomorrow we will have a pretty good indicator of the harvest volume. We reduced the separator temperature this morning to 92 degrees. I like the initial results. We have harvested 1700+/- Grosso so far. We have about 8500 to go. Tomorrow should be faster. The plants are not quite as big.

Started the day making oil from the Provence. It is hard to cut as the plants are interlocking. We made two distillations and four pounds (64 ozs) of oil. It was cut too early in the day and the separator temperature was also too low. We followed with our first distillation of Grosso and produced over 135 ozs of oil! We will do two more before we are finished today. Dale is operating the still almost independently. By tomorrow he will be able to operate on his own. Nick continues to lead the harvest.

One silver lining to all this rain should be an increased second growth for much of the Angustifolia. The next 5-6 days are forecasted clear so keep your fingers crossed. We have 5 more oil samples ready to send to Dan Burgard, our resident University of Puget Sound Chemistry Professor. He orchestrates a very quick turnaround which is helpful.

Being forced inside by weather has enabled us to focus on wreaths and bundles. Joannie has constructed 135+ wreaths. They are mostly in the 8 inch size although we do have 10 and 12 inch varieties.We are using Hidcote, Twickel Purple and Angustifolia. All are dark blue purple and are made with a generous number of bunches. Soon has formed over 100 dried bouquets. Some are all white with the Alba variety. Most will be made with Grosso and we will also make mixed bundles of Alba and Grosso. Katie is designing custom boxes to facilitate shipping and marketing.

Tomorrow and Sunday are supposed to be rainy. Monday should see the weather break and the beginning of a more seasonal climate.

Third day of rain…ugh! We did finish harvesting the Richard Grey. Dale did his first distillation. We distilled 135 ozs from about 500 plants. He did a good job. Joannie and Soon are making wreaths and forming beautiful dried bundles. They took a break and helped everyone with harvest. We also got some weeding in and stripped 60 pounds of buds.

We are supposed to have rain until Tuesday. There is only so much you can control in life. This a good reminder. We are adapting.

Today is the second day in a row we have had rain. The plants are too wet to harvest for buds. They mildew before they dry. The remainder of the Provence will be harvested for oil. We will still have 600-800 pounds of buds. It looks like tomorrow will be a better day. We are trying to get a larger crew. The Grosso is ready. We have a relatively small window. Daily it is 10-3pm (plants cut mid-day produce about 30% more oil); and I would imagine 4-5 days at the most to harvest the Grosso at its peak. Oil will remain on the plant; it will just not be as much.

The bees are getting more aggressive. As there are fewer remaining plants ,the 100,000 or so bees concentrate in greater numbers on those plants. Everybody is getting stung. We are employing all sorts of home remedies…how about 9volt batteries!…to little avail, pain and swelling continues ever so mildly. We may have to move harvest up an hour to get through this window. This year we have Italian bees. They generally start about 10am. Last year we had German bees. They started about an hour earlier.