Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly!

For my birthday, my sister-in-law gave me a couple of lovely lavender sachets, which I tucked into my underwear drawer. It reminded me that that the lavender in my garden was running rampant. It was time to harvest.

Last summer, I had let it flower and go to seed -- and then I regretted it come Christmas when I wanted to make some sachets or potpourri or naturally scented bath salts. So this year, I got the scissors out and snipped away.

At first I stuck the stems in a vase (hence the picture at the top of this post), but then I realized that if I wanted to dry them, I'd have to remove them from water. Duh.

So I clipped each stem (discarding the leaves) and just tossed them loosely in a bowl. And then I procrastinated, which is something I'm very good at doing.

According to Pinterest, I ought to have clipped the stems before the buds were so fully bloomed, but they seem to have retained their colour and definitely were still aromatic. The buds that were truly fully bloomed ended up like this.

A faded, dried-out flower.

Over the next ten days, I moved the bowl from one spot in the kitchen to another, always thinking, "I should get around to that." Occasionally, I fiddled with the stems, lightly stirring them.

Finally, I decided it was time to separate the flowers from the stalks.

This proved to be relatively easy. I simply pulled each bud against the direction of its growth, and it snapped off. The buds at the very tip were tricky because the stem itself is so fine that it tended to break off with the cluster of buds intact.

I sat back with a small bowl in my lap, plucking buds while surfing the net. After an hour or so (I didn't keep track of time), I ended up with this.

Naked stems

And this.

That's a small bowl of buds sitting inside the original bowl. I've got about 3/4 cup, enough for a couple of small gifts.

Up next from the garden: oregano.