July 16

Sage is finished for this year.

The lavender was cut on the Thursday. It wants cutting when the bottom flowers on the spike have opened and the top ones have not, and not after rain, and not in the middle of the day. It was a dry week so that was right.

Cut a hand's width above the wood. Below that it does not come back the same and the plant goes bare in the middle after two years.

They were done in bundles of about forty and tied twice, once up near the heads and once at the bottom, and hung head down under the eaves on the north side. It has to be the north side. In the sun the colour goes out of them in a week and then it is only stalks.

Twenty two bundles. The one who cut them said twenty six.

Hemp string, not the flax. The flax slips when the stems dry down and the bundle comes apart in your hand.

The line under the eaves had the sheets on it and they came down for this and have not gone back up.

It takes three weeks in a shed that is not damp. Ours is damp at the wall end so the ones at that end will want turning.

Nobody has said what is being done with them.