The seed for this project began when I was sitting with a glass of wine in hand, overlooking a vineyard, thinking “What could be more perfect than this…..excellent wine, beautiful scenery……fragrant lavender! “
So I started to research lavender – growing lavender, selling lavender, anything to do with lavender. I came across a place called Sequim in Washington State. Not only is it the self-styled “Lavender Capital of North America” with over 30 lavender farms in the surrounding area, but they also happened to be holding a conference on lavender within the next few months. I registered myself and my husband and we flew out to Seattle.
The conference was excellent with workshops, lectures and presentations from expert growers from around the world. I have never been so relaxed at a conference before! We got information on the many types of lavender, how to grow it, propagate, cook with it, make products, market it, just about everything. We met some wonderful people, all passionate about lavender and all so helpful.
When we returned I began to develop my products that I’ve been selling at the Kennett Square Farmers Market and various local craft fares over the past year. I enrolled on a course “From Soil to Sachet“, run by Susan Harrington from Labyrinth Hill Lavender Farm, which led me through the steps of creating my own lavender haven. I then came to an agreement with Stargazers Winery for the use of part of their land.
And here I am, just over sixteen months after that fateful glass of wine, with 640 lavender plants sitting on my driveway waiting to be planted!!
The 640 lavender plants arrived in 5 boxes. And they were delivered with all arrows pointing up!
Each box contains 4 trays, 2 on top and 2 on the bottom, and each tray contains 32 plants. There are 608 Grosso, 12 Melissa, 10 Folgate and 10 Royal Velvet. The Melissa, Folgate and Royal Velvet are culinary lavenders.
Part 1 of this project should really have been about preparing the land for planting BUT the plants were delivered 2 weeks earlier than expected and the weather didn’t want to cooperate and so the area to be planted wasn’t ready…..oh the plight of the farmer!
It’s hard to find educated people in this particular topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about!
Thanks