Make Lavender Wands with Fresh Lavender

Tomorrow I will have fresh bundles of lavender at the Lawton Farmer's Market. There are several things you can do with a fresh bundle. You can enjoy it fresh. Simple enough. Just cut the stems when you get home and change the water every day and they should last about 5 days before the buds begin to shatter. Collect up the shattered buds and put them in a sachet, or simply in a bowl, like the Victorians did for an easy room freshener. They would just turn them every day to keep the fragrance fresh.

You can dry the bundle by hanging it upside down, or standing it right side up in a vase. Depends on the look you want for your dried stems. You can even lay it down and it will dry.

The lavender blossoms are edible, so you can use them in salads, slaw, potato salad, on desserts, in drinks, to freeze in ice cubes and so on. They add a lovely and distinctive taste.

And lastly, if you've ever wanted to try to make a Lavender Wand, here's your chance. They keep for years and make lovely little gifts.

The wands can only be made with the pliable, fresh lavender stems. Here's a pretty good tutorial for wands and bottles. And this one from Essential Herbal is good, too. We did this as an activity last year when the Dahlia Garden Club came for a visit, which you can see here, as well as how I used the fresh blossoms to garnish Gooey Butter Cake and a delicious recipe for Lavender Mixed Berry Sorbet.

Just thought I'd throw this out there for those of you coming to the market tomorrow! See you there!
Cathy