Summer at Penn Cove Ranch

Today moved at a nice pace. We did a lot of work with flowers. Joannie and Soon packed 20 boxes consisting of 15 Super, 15 Grosso, and 20 Alba (white). We also moved all of the dried bunches into the house temporarily for temperature control. We need to keep them separate from the lavender we are still drying so they do not over dry and become difficult to form into wreaths.

The Groso is still a couple of days off, maybe Thursday. We are still harvesting Provence for drying and ultimately buds. The stripper (a machine from Australia designed to strip buds from dried plants) was successfully moved to the big barn and electrified. We are ready to strip!

Dale will start learning how to distill tomorrow. Lisa, his sister, did it for us last year. After distilling 50 or so tubs I feel I can teach someone else to distill. The new 1.2 million BTU boiler works really well. The entire system including condenser and separator (separates the oil from the hydrosol) requires very minor tinkering during the hour long process. He will pick it right up.

The Grosso is a remarkable purple. We added about two tons of organic lime and dolomite to the fields this year. I think that might have helped.

I think today may have marked the half way point. We were able to harvest about one half of the Provence. The drying stands are almost full. Fully loaded they hold about 8000 bundles. We have some lavender that is fully dried that we will box for dried bouquets. Soon has done a magnificent job cutting. The bundles are exquisite. She and Joannie worked 9 hours today harvesting fresh flowers for future sales. We made 16 pounds of Super. It is high quality oil. Tomorrow we will harvest and distill the Richard Grey. As I recall last year; it may be the best oil of all.

Susan put protective netting over a couple of our plum trees. We were able to harvest the sour cherries because the netting kept the birds away. Tonight is another beautiful evening at the ranch. Grosso harvest starts on Tuesday.

Saturday was a tough day. We slogged through 900 Super plants. Super is the largest plant we have. We planted them four feet apart…most of our other plants are three feet apart. We should have separated them by six feet! It was tough going. We also finished the 400 Hidcote in the East field. We made three batches of oil with the Super and Two more with the remaining Hidcote. All the oil was nice. Hidcote does not make a great deal of oil. Because of its deep purple color we probably should dedicate it to floral purposes next year.

The Grosso is not quite ready to harvest. We have 10,000+ Grosso plants. We have historically machine harvested these plants. This year we will hand harvest. It is more time consuming but more effective in collecting all of the plant material. It also leaves the plant shaped better.

We should have a crew of 10 today. We will harvest the rest of the Super and make bundles from Provence. Alex is coming up early to spray Trigger on previously harvested Angustifolia. This is an oraganic material that is supposed to spur cell division and plant growth…we will see.

Early GCMS test of the Angustifolia samples confirmed we are making very good oil!

We have made 100 wreaths so far. Joannie is doing 30-35 a day. She is spending 5-6 hours on it and I think that is great. She has learned to adjust the machine like a pro. We had a little welding event this morning. It seems that some idiot drove off without uncoupling the steam hose connected to the distillation unit. There was a decapitation of the steam line going into the tractor. I know the idiot intimately and he has assured me it will not happen again.

Today was spent cutting Provence for drying and eventually stripped for buds. We also harvested 8-900 Hidcote plants that will be distilled first thing in the morning. We received another 3 box flower order. Joannie is staying late to cut those. We have been blessed with some very good associates!

Tomorrow and Sunday will be big. We begin the Lavandin harvest. It should produce twice the oil as the Angustifolia…we’ll see.

This was a glorious morning. The early sun danced on the lavender. The remaining Hidcote shown dark blue. Super, a very large Lavandin, is at its full extension of four feet plus. It has a slight pink overtone, We will probably harvest it on Sunday. It should make a lot of oil.

We received an order for 150 bunches of fresh lavender at 4:30pm. Joannie and Nick stayed to fill it. Joannie also made 30+ wreaths today. We ran two Hidcote distillations. We have at least three more Hidcote distillations on Friday. Hidcote makes a lovely oil.
This is a big weekend. Saturday and Sunday will be busy. We expect to do 14 distillations…all Lavandin.

Days and nights like this are what the Pacific Northwest is all about. It is warm, clear, and just the slightest of breeze. We made some progress today with only three workers. We distilled the remainder of the Twickel Purple. The oil was superior! We also cut the last remnants of Buena Vista, about 250 plants. We will distill that tomorrow along with the last of the Hidcote. I would estimate 1200 plants or so.

We have distilled 174 pints (pounds) of Lavandula Angustifolia, sold 1000 fresh bunches, dried 3500 bunches for wreaths, cut 400 Grosso for dried bunches and 600 Provence bunches for buds. I think we are about 40% of the way from the end. It’s hard to say how much of the Angstifolia will have a second growth. If that proves robust then we are about 25% done. Luckily we have the harvesting god looking after us. See Michael’s creation below!

Wreath making is in high gear. After an early morning call to the manufacturer of our machine, we were able to make the necessary adjustments to restart production. Joannie is making some beautiful wreaths. She made one from the dried Jean Davis. It has a silver look. She thinks it needs a silver ribbon. Our goal is to make 200 dark blue wreaths first. Katie is cranking up the web site. We have narrowed our product offering to about six. We are debating whether to sell oil.

We are finishing up the Angustifolia harvest. The last of the Twickel Purlple is being harvested. Fighting the bees is speeding up the process!

Modern forms of transportation are introduced by the wizard of Penn Cove. Older forms of harvest lead to the distillation of the remainder of the Buena Vista. We did seven distillations yesterday and have the tub loaded and ready to go at 7:00 AM on Monday. Adam and Teresa left but not before Teresa showed Soon and Joannie how to reproduce her marvelous wreaths. I failed to mention that a former Ranch Supervisor got a slightly better job offer from American Airlines and has begun to soar like Gandalf. Michael has crossed the country and will soon settle in Chicago. You might remember him as the happy, waving tractor operator in a previous blog.

We continue to be blessed with wonderful weather.

Yesterday and today were marked by steady progress. We harvested 1200 Munstead plants yesterday….three distillations. Today we got the rest of the Munstead (800 plants) and 2400 Buena Vista. We distilled five tubs today and made about 250 ounces of oil.

Teresa designed and made wreaths. They look super! We purchased a wreath making machine and she showed Joannie how to make them. We will probably make 200+ wreaths from the Hidcote and Twickel Purple we have dried. Katie will design packaging for presentation and shipping. The wreaths use eight bunches! They are luxurious!

Stay tuned. Gandalf lives.

Today was a slow day. We had four workers. Three called in sick or otherwise. Nick hit a deer last night coming back from the fireworks and had insurance issues. We did start cutting the Alba (white lavandin) for drying. We will do some other flowers for drying tomorrow also. We distilled about 250 ozs. and cut 300 more Munstead plants. We have 2000 Munstead, 750 Twickle Purple, 500 Angustifolia, 3000 Buena Vista, and 2000 Hidcote to harvest for lavender oil. We hope to finish that by Sunday. The 15000 or so lavandin plants will start next week.

Adam went to the emergency room at Coupeville General this morning. He got a lecture for not coming in last nite and 10 stitches. His head is wrapped in bandages.

Today we finished distilling the Martha Roderick. We have over 1500 fluid ounces of EO and over 300 gallons of Hydrosol. We also cut all of the Sachet and 1/2 of the Munstead. We ran 3 stills today. And, with the hard work of the 10 workers who were at the Ranch, a large portion of the North field was cut for harvest (see pic below).

Another highlight: Adam pulled a tree on his head at his Uncle Lowell & Aunt Diane’s house while trying out the tire swing. The gash is fairly large!

We’ve harvested almost all the Martha Roderick. The last two days we have distilled oil from about 4000 plants. We’ve also sold 7 boxes of flowers. Joanie & Soon have been working very hard. We are focusing harvest at mid-day between 10:00 & 3:00 b/c we’ve observed that oil production is at its highest point during these hours. There are bees on every plant. No one has been stung yet!

The distillation operator has gained more confidence in using the machinery. Today was the first day with no calls to the manufacturer. During the last two days we’ve had conference calls with our two consultants. Eva-Marie Lind is a product consultant. Bill Wolf & Elisabeth Vogel are industry consultants. They are looking to advise us in selling our hydrosol & other products. They have really been helpful to date.

Today through the intervention of Teresa & Dale Espernum we’ve made the connection to high-speed cable internet. In addition we’ve set up wireless throughout the Ranch. Teresa & Katie also took photographs of our fresh Twickle Purple and Alba (white) for the web site. Susan was the gopher today keeping everyone supplied and fed!

Friday was a big day at the Ranch. We began the harvest of Martha Roderick to make oil. It was also the first time we used the 1,200,000 btu boiler and expanded mobile distillation unit to make oil. The new tub, which is on wheels, actually is driven to the fields where it’s loaded. We made two tubs on Friday and one on Saturday.

On Sunday we had over 11 people hand-harvesting the Martha Roderick. Teresa & Bill distilled over 25 pints (14 liters) of oil. One thing that we observed was that the lavender harvested at mid-day produced almost 75% more oil than that of early in the day. This confirms what we learned at Sequim National Lavender Conference 2006.

This week we will continue to harvest the English varieties and make oil. We will also pick more bunches to be delivered throughout the Northwest (we’ve sold 19 boxes with 50 bunches so far). Katie, Teresa & Bill are meeting today to refine the business plan created last fall.

There’s a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, right? …right?!