Tutorial: How To Harvest, Dry, and Use Lavender 💜

Welcome back to the channel, Sunshines. I'm Rachel with Four Kids and Farm and we are just going to talk about lavender today. I have lavender that I'm looking at and it just needs to be harvested and so I just wanted to take you guys through and just tell you a little bit about the life of lavender. We'll go over a little bit of the history, what kinds of types of lavender there are. There's so many how it grows and how it thrives and we'll also talk about the uses of lavender. It smells so good and so I like to save it and I want to use it in soaps because I'm going to start making soap out of my goat milk. So come along with me as we explore this little adventure together as I harvest the lavender and learn a little something that maybe you didn't know before. So lavender is believed to be from the Mediterranean, the Middle East and India and so it came to us from that area. So it really loves the scorching hot sun. It just loves the heat and so here in California it grows really well because today it is 106 so that lavender actually really enjoys the sunshine. It derives from the Latin word lavare which means to bathe or to wash. The Greeks and the Romans they used lavender a lot to scent their herbal baths. They used it in their bedding. They used it in their clothing and their hair. They used it as a scent for perfume. They also used it as an antimicrobial agent and we know today that that is an antimicrobial agent and in the Middle Ages it was used or known as the herb of love. So some of the women back in those days they would wear necklaces of lavender. So if you were wearing lavender that was one of the things to encourage suitors and if they had sick rooms they would go because it was an antimicrobial agent. They would strew them all over the sick floors in the castles and so I thought that was super interesting. They would use it as a disinfectant for that. In World War II it was specifically used to help to heal wounds. They used to use it as an insecticide for linens to protect the linen from moths. I thought this was kind of funny so thieves would go and they would go rob the graves and then afterwards they would wash their hands in lavender and then they wouldn't get the plague after robbing the graves. Who does that? Gypsies also used to sell lavender in batches and little bundles. It was something that was to supposedly bring good fortune. Also giving and receiving lavender is known to symbolize love and appreciation and back in the middle times they used to use lavender to ward off evil spirits and so we actually know those things to be disease nowadays and so in order for them to avoid sickness and plagues and things like that it was to protect against the evil spirits that were causing disease so I thought that was really interesting. Those are some fun facts about the history of lavender. So is there anyone that you thought was interesting more than the other? I did not know about the grave diggers and how they would do that so very interesting. The three main lavenders that we are kind of familiar with, there is the English lavender. The one that I actually have in my garden is English lavender. It's known for the scent and the availability of the essential oil in it. It's just really good for making essential oils and that fragrance is really well kept in that one. It's one of the most fragrant ones. Then there's French lavender and then there's Spanish lavender. So there's three main kinds. The one that I'm going to be harvesting is the English lavender. So the English lavender, Lavendula angustifolia. I'm probably totally butchering that but this is one of those widely common lavenders that lots of people are pretty familiar with. It's one of the common species and it's a perennial. So a perennial is something that comes back year after year so it will keep coming back as long as you take care of it. So the English lavender is best known for its essential oil properties. It blooms from June to August and it just loves that hot weather and it loves not having to sit in wet soil. So its feet don't like to be wet. Now there's also the French lavender. They're good for filling spaces and then there's the Spanish lavender. I think this one's actually one of the most prettiest ones. It's the one that's kind of got a big bottom and then the petals on top kind of look like rabbit ears and so that one actually likes winter best and the Spanish variety it blooms the longest. You see how the little blooms are starting to pop up. I usually only harvest it when it's when it looks like this. It just keeps longer. This is what my kids love to do. They come and they run their hands on it and then they smell their hands. It smells like lavender. It's so good. Anyway, we let this go a little bit too long for harvesting but I'm still gonna do it. Look at all this lavender. Now let's talk about growing lavender. I am in 9b so my zone may be a little bit different than yours but my zone is really hot. Today it's 105 but lavender actually likes that and the English variety that I grow really likes it. It even loves neglect. I think it actually thrives on neglect. I've watered it this year. It was hooked up to a drip system but I really think it thrives off neglect. The only thing I do actually is to prune it so I'll trim off all of the spikes of the flowers. Those long spikes that have the flowers on them. I'll trim those so it doesn't like wet feet. Lavender does not like having its feet wet so those roots or the feet. They don't like being wet. They like really good draining soil otherwise they're really susceptible to rot and so you don't want your lavender to rot and get sick. When you're pruning it you're supposed to cut one third off of the stem otherwise you could damage it if you go any further and so it's really important not to cut too deep on the lavender so that you can keep it thriving and not damage the plant. I haven't had a problem with pests here because we're so dry but I have read that aphids can be a problem for it, white flies, and spittle bugs. I haven't had a problem with that luckily. Knock on wood but those are some of the pests that you can encounter when you're growing lavender. As I harvest this I am amazed by all of these beautiful bees that have come to my garden. The lavender invites the beneficial insects. I have never seen so many bees come in when my lavender has started to bloom so it is a food source for those beneficial insects. So grow lavender. It will make your garden beautiful and it will also bring in all those beautiful insects to help pollinate your food, to help pollinate your garden, and to come feed off your flowers and provide that nectar that those bees need. So that's very important. Gosh there's so many uses. You can make salves out of it. You can use it for cooking. So culinary use is awesome. Biscuits and desserts and cakes and I saw a recipe for creme brulee in there and I was reading one about lamb which I would have never thought to do but I think I might try it because we have some lamb in the freezer. You can put it in smoothies. You can put it, you can make lavender syrup to go on your pancakes. You can use it for different skin care and skin cream. I love lavender for the calmness that it provides and helping you with sleep. So it is something that also encourages sleep. When my kids were little I would put lavender on their feet. Lavender essential oil and they would just pass right out. So it is just really cool. It boosts your mood. It helps relieve pain. It heals the skin and it's a protective agent. It's also been known to repel mosquitoes. So anyway I just thought that was very interesting. All those fun facts and I just thought that was fun and interesting. Lavender is best harvested in the morning because that is when all those essential oils are wrapped up in those buds and the sun hasn't touched it yet to evaporate them and it's just a good time to harvest pretty much anything in the morning. Flowers, vegetables. It's a pretty good time to harvest. So we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna harvest those lavender in the morning. So I'll see you guys then. All right you guys it's a new day and we're gonna go ahead to the garden because it's in the morning. We're gonna go harvest that lavender. Come on let's go. I got my trusty scissors and honestly I'm just grabbing by the bottom and I'm just cutting just kind of do like a rough cut. We'll go in later. So now I'm gonna take them off in chunks just handfuls like that size because lavender dries when it dries. I noticed this last year when I dried it I tied it with a string because they dehydrate and because they dry it shrinks and so this year I'm taking a trusty rubber band and then I'm gonna wrap it around so then it can shrink with the lavender as it dries. So I'm gonna use rubber band. Super easy. A handful of freshly picked lavender and then I just wrap it around. Super easy. And then when it starts to dry and when that starts to shrink then it can shrink along with it and tighten its grip around it. So one down a lot more to go. And then you just hang them up to dry like this and then you can harvest all the little buds once they're dry. There's something to be said about finding peace in the garden and just having some space there. I have little seats around the garden and I think it should be a place where you love to come and you love to just sit and you can ponder and pray and meditate and so this is kind of a good space for that. I feel like the older I get the more happy I get. It's not even a word. Anyway I just think it's cool. You need to create a space in your garden so it's like a sanctuary. So here we are just wrapping up the lavender and enjoying the peace of the garden. So you guys any of you grow lavender out there what do you like to use it for? What's your favorite use for it? Leave it in the comments below. I want to know. Okay. Do you bake with it? Do you use it for herbalism? Do you put it in your soaps? All right sunshine. So I am just hanging the lavender to dry. So I've got all my tools and my overalls. I've got just some twine. I've got some scissors and yeah we're just wrapping things up. So I'll just wrap it around the rubber. It's so simple. Just tie it onto the rubber band to a couple knots. So I'm just hanging them on my barn because that's what I got for the rubber band so that rubber band can squeeze the lavender as it dries because it's going to shrink and then I just tie it up with a nail. Super simple. You guys thanks for joining me today as I harvested our lavender. It was a little bit late but we got it done. There's still some buds in here that we can harvest and put into my goat milk soap. I'm pretty excited to start making soap and use this lavender to make it look pretty and smell pretty. Thanks for joining me along and I'll see you guys in the next video. Don't forget like, subscribe and check that notification bell so you know when 4Kids and a Farm puts out another video. Bye sunshines!