Behind the scenes look at harvesting our lavender

Every year we harvest our Lavender.  The first year we planted we were able to harvest ourselves, but as the years have gone by and our lavender has grown we have needed to employ some extra hands.  And these hands belong to some wonderful young people with a lot more energy and stamina than us older folk.  

(Below and above are just a portion of the lavender we harvested this year.)   

After harvesting the lavender from the fields the real work begins.  In order for lavender to keep it's rich color and fragrance it needs to be hung in a cool dark place. 

Next, we take the harvested lavender to our cottage and begin the process of separating, sorting and hanging it.  

After hours and hours of labor, our cottage is full from top to bottom with hundreds upon hundreds of lavender bundles.  They hang in this cool dark place until dry. 

Tomorrow, we'll show you how we get all those thousands of buds off the stems and into our products.  We will also share a delicious recipe for white hot chocolate with a touch of lavender. Yum.

This year we also planted and harvested gorgeous white lavender for the first time.  We are excited to post pictures of this gorgeous and majestic looking variety of lavender.