Making lavender bags from a garden harvest

Why Lavender Belongs in an Orchard Garden

Anyone who keeps a few apple trees soon learns that the orchard is never just about fruit. The grass between the trunks, the sunny south-facing border, the strip beside the shed — all of it is usable ground. Lavender suits that ground beautifully. It tolerates the free-draining, slightly poor soil that fruit trees prefer, it flowers through the gap between blossom and harvest, and it brings in the bees that pollinate your apples and pears. Plant a row of English lavender — varieties such as 'Hidcote' or 'Munstead' — along a path or at the edge of the fruit cage, and within two or three seasons you will have more than enough to cut.

What follows is the routine I use each July and August: cutting at the right moment, drying the bundles properly, and then turning the harvest into simple lavender bags for drawers, wardrobes and Christmas presents. Nothing here needs special equipment, and most of it can be done at the kitchen table with a cup of tea to hand.

Timing the Cut

The single biggest mistake with lavender is cutting too late. Once the flowers have opened fully and begun to fade, the scent weakens and the buds drop as they dry. The moment to aim for is when the spikes are in tight bud with just a few florets showing colour — usually from early July onwards, depending on your county and the summer we have had.

Choose a dry morning after the dew has lifted but before the heat of the day, when the oil is at its strongest. Cut stems long, taking them back to the woody growth but leaving at least a couple of inches of leafy stem on the plant. Never cut into the old wood itself; lavender does not readily regrow from bare timber, and hard pruning into it can kill an old bush outright.

Gather the stems into loose handfuls and secure them with a rubber band rather than string. Rubber holds its grip as the stems shrink, so the bundle will not slip out and scatter across the floor three days later.

Drying Bundles in a Dark, Airy Room

Hang the bundles upside down in a dark, dry, well-ventilated room. A spare bedroom with the curtains drawn, an airing cupboard left ajar, or a loft with a window cracked open all work well. Avoid the kitchen and the utility room — steam and cooking smells will undo the work. Light is the enemy here, because sunlight bleaches the colour from that lovely grey-purple to a tired brown.

• Space the bundles a hand's width apart so air moves freely between them.
• Hang them from a line, a clothes airer or hooks screwed into a beam.
• Keep the room unheated but not damp; a dehumidifier on low is fine in a wet summer.
• Leave them for ten days to three weeks, until the stems snap rather than bend.

If you are short of hanging space, lay the bundles flat on newspaper on a spare bed, turning them every few days. They will dry a little more slowly but just as well.

Stripping and Storing the Buds

Once dry, hold each bundle over a large bowl and rub the flower heads between your palms. The buds fall away easily and the bare stems can go on the compost heap. Work over a sheet if you can, because dried lavender travels further than you would believe.

Tip the buds into a clean jar with a tight-fitting lid and store them in a dark cupboard. They will keep their scent for a year or more. If you want the fragrance to last even longer in the finished bags, add a drop or two of lavender essential oil to the jar, shake it well and leave it for a week before using.

Sewing the Bags

Lavender bags are the simplest sewing project imaginable, and they are a fine way to use up scraps of fabric. Cotton, linen and fine wool all work; synthetics hold the scent less kindly. Old shirt fabric, worn pillowcases and offcuts from curtain-making are all perfectly good.

• Cut two squares or rectangles, roughly 10cm by 12cm, right sides together.
• Stitch around three sides with a 1cm seam, leaving the fourth open.
• Clip the corners, turn the bag right side out and press it flat.
• Fill about two-thirds full with dried buds — a small funnel or a rolled paper cone makes this easy.
• Fold the raw edges of the opening inwards and slip-stitch it closed, or run a gathering thread around the top and pull it tight for a pouch shape.

For a quicker version, cut a circle of fabric, place a spoonful of buds in the centre, gather the edges and tie with ribbon. These look charming hung on a coat hanger.

Using and Giving Them

Tuck bags between folded jumpers, in the linen drawer, in the bottom of a wardrobe, or inside a wellington boot that has seen better days. Give them a gentle squeeze now and then to release the oil. One bag will scent a drawer for a couple of months; after that, refresh it with a drop of essential oil or empty the old buds onto the compost and refill.

For gifts, sew a set of three in coordinating fabrics and tie them with garden twine and a sprig of dried stems. Paired with a jar of your own apple chutney, they make a genuinely useful present that costs almost nothing and says far more than anything bought in a hurry. That, in the end, is the quiet pleasure of orchard living: a little patience in July, and a house that smells of summer all winter long.