How It Started...

Henry oversees out first planting of Grosso lavender

Sweet Lavender getting bigger

Grosso lavender

It all started back in 2015 after a visit to Keys Creek Lavender Farm in North San Diego County.  I had been thinking about maybe possibly adding to the few lavender plants we had because I had always loved the plant and was trying to figure out what to do with a large part of our property.  But after walking through the lavender field at Keys Creek, watching the distilling process, sampling their lavender lemonade and lavender shortbread, I was hooked.  As we were leaving, Mark and I noticed flats of Grosso lavender for sale and decided right then that this was what we wanted to do and bought a flat.  For the next 3 months we added a row at a time, purchasing the rest of our lavender, both Grosso and Sweet Lavender (Lavandula Heterophylla) from Pearson’s Gardens in Vista, CA.  

Since then I have worked on educating myself about Lavender and its uses -- and there's a lot to learn. Thankfully there are some wonderful websites out there:  Mountain Valley Growers, Millbrook Lavender Farm and Lavender Lake Farms to name a few.  In the first year we had several harvests, one unattractive pruning (those poor Grosso plants have looked like a dog with a bad haircut for the last few months), tried soap-making, wreath-making, and sachet-making.  And I gave lavender bunches to friends, family, neighbors...anyone really.  I also researched essential oil distillation and tried it out over the summer as well.  The follwoing year we planted a few culinary lavender varieties which opened up a whole other obsession.