How To Properly Harvest & Preserve Lavender

If you are lucky enough to have a sunny spot in your garden you might want to consider growing some lavender. It’s one of the easiest shrubs to grow. It thrives on neglect in hot sunny locations with little water making it the perfect plant to add to a Mediterranean garden setting. When you have lavender bushes growing in your garden you will be rewarded with long stalks of tiny fragrant blooms that can easily be harvested and preserved.

This is French Lavender. It produces slender intensely fragrant spikes of purple blossoms.

French Lavender has an intense fragrance to make your home smell fresh! It grows two to three feet high and does well planted either in the ground or in containers on patios.

I adore the scent of lavender. Its calming fragrance has been shown to help with insomnia and anxiety. Lavender has so many uses. The flower spikes are often used in dried flower arrangements and in potpourris. Lavender is also used as an herbal filler inside sachets used to freshen linens. Place dried lavender sachets among stored items of clothing to give them a fresh fragrance and to deter moths. Dried lavender flowers can also be used as wedding confetti instead of rice or birdseed. Lavender can also be used in scented waters, oils, and sachets.

Plant lavender in well-draining soil, in a sunny location that gets direct sunlight for at least 6 hours each day.

The best time to harvest Lavender is when half of the flower buds are still closed. 

When harvesting Lavender stems trim them off right above a leaf node. Make sure not to cut off any of the woody parts of the plant, which could damage it.

Trim right above the leaf node.

One you’ve harvested your Lavender stalks of blooms, the easiest way to dry it is to gather together several stalks and tie them together into small bundles.

Hang small bunches upside down in a cool dark spot with good air circulation.

Once lavender is completely dry, use your hands to rub off the blooms from the stalks. I do this over a sheet of paper and then transfer the blooms into a jar.

Store lavender blooms in an airtight container, in a dark location and keep it away from moisture. Moisture can cause it to mould and ruin it.

My favorite way to use lavender is to make sachets and place them in my dresser drawers and under my pillow.

Use some of the bounty from your garden to make this luxurious spa quality Lavender & Tea Tree Foot Soak. It’s so easy to make and your tired tootsies will thank you when you soak them in this fragrant, soothing foot soak.

There’s something so very special about using the bounty from your very own garden. That feeling of connection to the earth is quite special. Nothing brings me more satisfaction than going out into my garden to harvest its bounty to use in my cooking or to make my life just a little bit sweeter.

Even if you’ve never grown anything before, Lavender is a good plant to start with. It’s easy to grow and harvest and you will be enjoying its sweet fragrance long after summer is just a distant memory.

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