Transplanting Lavender

Transplanting works best when cuttings are treated with growth hormone. Since we are not using any chemicals and where possible trying to do everything ourselves, commercial growth hormone was out of the question. After a bit of reading I have learnt that you can prepare mixture which will work just as well as commercial growth hormone but its free and 100% organic.

Step one was to find a willow tree, luckily there was one growing beside the road just about 200 meters away from our home. I have taken about 10 cuttings, they should be new shots, still green not yet wooden.

Leaves and tips will go on compost heap.

Stripped shots were cut into inch long pieces and placed in heat resistant jar.

I have added boiling water in proportions 1:10

Mixture was left to stand for about 24 hrs. Next day general purpose organic compost was generously watered with essence from willow cuttings and placed in 6 small pots. We only have one small lavender plant in front garden but it was enough to take 6 cuttings. Cuts were about 5-6 inches long, stripped from the bottom creating about 2 inch stem. I have placed lavender cuttings in holes in prepared pots enriched with willow essence and pressed gently.

I will report in about a month with the progress.

Visit to Lavender Fields

Very educational and perhaps useful trip, we have learnt a great deal about growing lavender plants and distillation of lavender oil using simple still with Liebig condenser and clever oil separator. I am really excited about possibility of building small home still for distillation of essential oils, perhaps is a project for next winter.

First thing first, I have to build shed on our allotment. This is quite a big project and I am not very confident about it. Original plan was to build it entirely from old shipping pallets, unfortunately I have rather stupidly dismantled about 4 pallets when we just got the allotment and now I do not have enough of them for walls. Anyway I will try to put together floor and what I can it terms of walls and try to resource more pallets this week.

Big Cherry Tree

I have finally got around to cutting down old bugger with only hand saw. It was a long and painful process for us both, I started with branches at the bottom working my way up to the top of the tree. After stripping him from canopy I proceeded to reducing trunk to short stump. Word of advice for anyone attempting to cut down a tree that about 15 inches in diameter using hand saw - don't do it. It took me about half an hour, 20 breaks, a litre of water and in the end help from my wife to bring him on the ground. We both are actually surprised how much more sun our plot has now. 


All branches are piled up against residential fence and I will have to come up with solution what do with them. Options are burning them or hiring wood chipper and then slowly composting over the next few years. 


Now I have plenty of space to start building shed,  plan is to join 4 bottom pallets together tomorrow, level up the surface and position pallets in permanent spot. We are still gathering materials from Freecycle, Gumtree and Ebay but it looks like I will have to make a trip to B&Q and buy some new items.

Apples of hope

After couple of months fighting with ants they finally given up and moved their aphid farm from our apple tree somewhere else. I haven't seen one aphid on leaves for about a week now. Hopefully free from aphids this wild tree will produce big sweet apples, there is only about 10 fruits left on the tree so we keep our fingers crossed for our own apples this year.

Feeding the bug

This morning 24 hrs after adding Pectolase, Yeast and Nutrient was added to each of the buckets.

I was rather surprised to see relatively clear juice in the buckets with skins clearly separated. Compared to my previous attempts at wine making with plums and rosehips it is a major difference. Is it due to type of fruit used or effect of pectolase, I will probably find out when I add pectolase to plum wine later this year.

Morning after

Not that kind of morning!

Fruit crush cooled down and I added a teaspoon of pectolase dissolved in a cup of lukewarm water to each of the fermentation buckets. I have to say both buckets smell rather awesome.

Winemaking evening

Redcurrant Wine
1.5kg washed redcurrants
1.75kg sugar
4.5ltr water

Blackcurrant Wine
1.5kg washed blackcurrants
1.55kg sugar
4ltr water

I started cleaning redcurrants at about 10pm, last batch of blackcurrants was crushed at about midnight. Some of the blackcurrants were getting mouldy, they were separated out for composting.

Fruits were washed, cleaned and crushed. I have boiled water as in recipe and dissolved sugar, sweet mixture was added to crushed fruits and left overnight to cool down.