Growing Organic Herbs: Growing Lavender

Latest Update 25th July 2016.

Lavender

I grow lavender because its a beautiful plant with masses of fragrant purple flowers, and it attracts predatory insects keeping pests under control on the plant and helps control them in the nearby vegetable beds.
Lavender prospers in Melbourne's hot dry summers, and It hums with busy insects when its sunny, especially the bees
Its one of the easiest of plants to propagate from cuttings, and I regularly renew them when they get too big and cumbersome.
The picture above taken in mid winter is one of my French Lavender plants. It flowers all year round and grows more vigorously than my English Lavender.

Details.

Growing Conditions:

Soil Preparation.

In Spring, clear a space for Lavender by removing old mulch, dead leaves and unwanted organic material. Choose a place where it has not been grown for several years.
Apply a 60mm thick top dressing of home made compost. Cover with organic straw mulch.

Growing Instructions.

Lavender is a perennial plant, and I propogate it from softwood cuttings.
Most people advise taking cuttings as new growth begins to appear in spring, but my propagator will grow new cuttings most times of the year, and I usually take cuttings in late autumn so I can plant them out in spring.
Choose your strongest most vigorous plant as a source of cuttings.
Take cuttings from new shoots about 100mm long in spring. Cut the shoot just below a node and remove the lower leaves leaving one pair of full size leaves and the new shoot in place. Plant the cuttings about 60mm deep in a propagator.
The propagator's microbial activity and constant soil moisture stimulates root growth, so I don't use rooting powder.
Once the plant starts to grow vigorously, relocate it in the prepared soil in your herb bed.
Water it in and apply a foliar spray of aerated compost tea every 4 weeks.
If left to its own devices a Lavender plant will become woody after a couple of years, however, to prevent this you should prune the plant regularly in spring before new growth starts and again in late summer after flowers dry out. A well maintained lavender plant will last at least 5 years before it needs to be replaced. See demo.

Harvesting and Storage.

I grow lavender for their attractive foliage and flowers as bedding plants in the garden. I don't usually harvest the flowers, but they make beautiful fragrant cut flowers either in bloom or after they have gone to seed.

Organic Pest Control.

I grow my herbs in a drip irrigated raised bed, and run copper tape around it 100mm off the ground.
Copper tape is a very effective barrier as the slugs and snails get a small electric shock when they come into contact with it, and they retreat to less hostile surroundings.
Occasionally I get one or two juvenile snails in my raised beds. I believe they get into the bed as eggs though the compost heap. When this happens, I use a few iron chelate snail baits to round them up. These bates are approved for use in organic gardens, but I only use the bare minimum to do the job.

Aerated compost tea improves the plants resistance to whitefly damage.
Control any infestations by spray your crop thoroughly with organic horticultural oil.
Spray again in a few days to ensure second generation whitefly do not survive.

Repeated foliar sprays of aerated compost tea should deter most airborne pests and diseases.

Proper soil preparation and regular applications of home made compost should control soil borne pests.

Growing Organic Herbs