Looking back: 27 days, no rain, many crows!

When we thought about all the things that could go wrong with ploughing up 3 acres of land to plant 6000 lavender plants and get them to the point where they could be harvested for essential oils, we came up with a long list. Then we planned on how to mitigate the risks, good planning we thought.

Then we came to the classic point where planning meets reality, who could have thought that in the Isle of Man, where we are normally very well blessed with rainfall, it literally wouldn't rain for 27 days after we planted the lavenders in 2023? After a frantic week of dragging trailers and water bowsers around the fields, irrigation systems were rigged up at top speed and the human element was supplied by us and some amazing helpers. The relentless hot weather meant that we had to water between 4am and 7am every day in order to cover every plant over 3 days. Not going to deny that even for early risers that was pretty tough. We'd just like to pay our respects to the people who dug the really deep well at our farm nearly 200 years ago, it never once ran dry throughout this period and we were immeasurably grateful for it.

Lavender is of course an incredibly drought resistant plant but that comes when its root system has fully developed. When newly planted and young and tender, it needs watering.

On the 27th night, just before midnight, we woke to the sound of rain, we literally ran out of the farmhouse into the lavender field in our nightclothes and danced about in the rain, joined by our dog Molly who obviously thought that we were crazy but wasn't going to pass up the chance of a midnight walk!

In parallel with the 27 day trial, an astonishing new problem hit us. Most of our 7 varieties of lavender were planted as young but not tiny plants. We were very keen to try a new variety Phenomenal which has a stunning appearance and fragrance but it was only available in plugs which are tiny. The first time we realised that tens of the Phenomenal plugs were lying on the ground and had dried out and died in the searingly hot conditions, we thought that the ground drying out so severely had caused them to pop out. As the problem grew worse and our treasured new plants were being depleted by the day we figured out what was going on. The crows were literally ripping the plugs out of the ground!

We tried various measures, Sally and Simon Scarecrow were placed strategically amongst the Phenomenon and silver streamers were attached to the stakes and fence, but the crows kept coming unless we were actually in the field chasing them off and in the end we lost a lot of the Phenomenon. One day I was so cross with them that I literally chased them off by running at them waving the scarecrow! The many Phenomenals that have made it are thriving fabulously and have reached a size where the crows can't bother them. The treasured cuttings are all thriving too and will be used to replace the ones that were lost next spring. They won't be planted out until they are a fighting size though as there is no doubt that prevention is much better than doing battle with crows. In retrospect, we should have dug up the plants and put them back in pots until they were bigger but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Today it's absolutely bucketing down, the ferries have been cancelled and that strange hot and dry period seems almost imaginary.