It's Time For Baking For The Fallidays With Culinary Lavender!
Hello Lavender Lovers!
It has been a busy, busy year so far and it's hard to believe we are almos...
Spring!
So here we are, only 2 days from Spring! The winter flew by, and was pretty good to us for a cha...
Let's Get Caught Up!
Hi Lavender Lovers!
I apologize for being so unreliable about posting on this blog. It seems ...
Thank You For Your Support
Hi friends!
We want to let you all know how very, very thankful we are to have such amazing custo...
Things Are Warming Up At Sleepy Bees!
Spring sure didn't hang around long! The heat is here already and seems like it has settled in t...
Summer 2020: Making Lemonade
This summer did not turn out like we were expecting! Indoor events were canceled, masks were req...
Sleepy Bees Lavender Farm Spring/Summer 2019 Catch Up
The majority of our summer was spent weeding and attending craft shows, fairs, and farmers' markets. We have met a ton of great people and made some really good business connections. We learned so much this summer. We are finding our niche and settling in nicely.
Spring Craft Show Time!
What I found out at that first sale, and at every sale since then, is that people are awesome. They are kind and supportive even if they aren't buying anything. People love hearing our story and Jerry sure loves telling it! They are genuinely curious and interested in hearing more. They want to be able to visit the farm. I think later this summer when the plants are blooming and we have an open house, we will have more visitors than we even imagined.
The Bed Shaper and the Mounds
At this point in preparations we were struggling. The weather had NOT been cooperating. It rained almost every day for a week at the time we were supposed to be getting the manure and lime spread, so we were already about a week behind. After going down the first row with the shaper, we ended up with a small pile, but nothing like the 12" mound we were envisioning at all. The pile was much wider and squared off at the top, and also not packed down at all. It turned out that the rototiller we used did not dig down far enough to bring up enough loose dirt to completely fill the bed shaper. The plates are not height adjustable, so we had to work with the 12" that we had.
Prepping Fields (a nice way to say Spreading Poop)
The first week of May 2018 it was finally time to get our field ready for planting. A...
Time to Order Some Plants
According to the US Lavender Grower's Association, there are over 45 different species of lavender with over 450 varieties. To decide which would be the best variety for us, we needed to do a lot of research on which types would grow best in our climate, produce the most essential oil (for use in products we'd be making), be good for culinary use, and of course look and smell amazing both fresh and dried. That's not too much to ask of one flower, is it?
Sleepy Bee Lavender Farm- A Little History- Part 1
We are Jerry and Holly McCabe, and we want to share our experiences (both the successes and the failures) as we learn the ins and outs of creating a lavender and honey farm. We are learning as we go. We have literally no experience with farming or raising bees, so it should prove interesting.