The bungalow project

New project undergoing: the old barn reconstruction into a bungalow. As the agricultural venture is progressing beautifully we thought that a place to stay will be a great add to the lavender field.
Here it is our well organized building team and how the barn looks now:

Short visit at the field

The lavender is growing and  looking great :

One Day Farming

The best time for one to do his hobby is during work time, in the week.

When it’s not possible for me to spend a few days at the field, the “one day farming” is the way to keep in touch with the project.

Early morning departure from Walvis Bay, short flight to Omaruru,

Aerial view of the 3 hectares fenced area

Omaruru airport. From here 18 km drive to the lavender field.

The gate to Erongo Mountain Nature Conservancy

Checking the lavender, the orchard, water supply, power, etc and fix the glitches, take pictures and fly back home. Life is good! even though I have to work in 40 C plus….
After the latest rain in the area it is amazing to see how much the lavender grows in a short time, the fruit trees are greener and happy and the bush is back to life.

Afternoon departure from Omaruru at 41C

Back home, Walvis Bay, final approach

Happy New Year 2016 !

Happy New Year to all of you, lavender fans !
First update since planting the lavender eight weeks ago.
About two thirds of the plants received are doing well despite the extreme hot weather in Omaruru area. The other third had not much chance from the beginning as this ones were tiny, little plants which couldn't survive the heat shock. We drip irrigate the field eight times a day to keep the plants cool.
The rainy season has started, a bit shy these days, still, we had about 20mm rain over the past 10 days.

 

Once the lavender field has been established we had more time to care for the orchard, to plant more fruit trees, apply mulch and organic fertilizer, improve the irrigation. We've also assembled the recently acquired bush shredder/chipper so we'll soon make mulch for the lavender plants.

Planting Lavender

The long awaited moment of planting lavender arrived. With temperatures between 13C in the morning and rising fast to 39C, working against the clock to give the plants more chance to survive the transplant it was one tough job.
The first day we lost a field worker, luckily not a good one (the photographer). Got him a water/power management job and replaced him with much better Moses (no, he didn’t part our water).
During the three days, what it took us to have the job done, we used over 100.000 liters of water for irrigation and this couldn’t have been possible without the new, strong borehole. The first few weeks are critical for the plants to survive so in summer time we'll use 20.000 liters water per day.
Thank you team! Thelma,Tate Penda, Meme Penda, Willbard, Andreas and Moses (no, he didn’t make water from a rock in the desert).
Once the plants were in the ground we applied organic fertilizers through the drip irrigation system.
 Rain will be a great assistance so let’s hope we’ll have a good rainy season.

3000 seedlings in a box:

The hole makers:

Seedling:

Ready for planting

With the new borehole and a 4200 L/h submersible pump dropped in our water problem is ended.
The iron barn is finished as well. Now we are ready!
The seedlings are expected tomorrow, 11 November and the next day we should start planting.

Our new barn:

New borehole

We are now behind the schedule for planting but this was actually a good thing, it gave us time to test the irrigation system in daily working conditions and pick up the snags.
So we had to install a bigger pressure pump, then more solar panels - thank you Lucia.
The biggest concern was the water supply as the old borehole was not performing well. We decided to give it a cleaning up and see what happens. Unfortunately it was so messed up that not much we could do for it. We knew we are in deep sh…trouble.
The rig was at Kranzberg Lavender Fields anyway so a quick decision was made, drill a new bore hole.
But how to find the right spot? Easy! With professional advise from my geologist friend of Transylvanian origin, Andreas, Daniel’s experience, the mountains and rocks around telling us their story and a lot of optimism we start drilling. Only 30m! If there is no sign of water we give up.
At 50 m I start worrying. Call a neighbor, hey Dirk, how deep did you find water? 63 m. Ok, we are only at 53 now.
Let's put another rod, wow we strike the water!  What an emotional experience. We have about 5000L/h already, let’s put another rod and finish. ... But what if ...?  Another rod followed and then another one and …..wow, strike again.
Now we should really stop. But... what if...? Hey, stop it, this is not a gamble... Or is it?
8700L/h at 81m depth it’s a very good water hole considering we are in the desert and the water spotting expertise we had. Farming made easy. Some say I’m lucky.  I feel I’m a very happy lucky guy.

 

Ground samples of each 6m of drilling: