It has been way too long since my last blog post, and there are a few reasons for that.  For this blog, let's get all caught up with what's been happening in our second season.  

In early May we made a trip to Sage Creations in Palisade Colorado to pick up lavender plants.  We decided on six varieties this year: Tucker's Early, Twickel Purple, Melissa (which is pinkish white), Buena Vista, Folgate and Royal Purple.  All of these are English varieties which our research shows should do the best in our area.  Sage Creations is a wonderful nursery, and Paola, the owner had so much knowledge that she shared with us.  We plan on going back out to attend one of her classes on distilling essential oils when we get to that point.  

While we were there we also met our online friend and mentor, Dr. Curtis Swift who was instrumental in us getting our soil amended and our fields prepared correctly.  He took us around one of his lavender fields and we absorbed as much knowledge as we could!

We spent the months of May and most of June battling the weather.  It rained and rained and rained some more!  It was impossible to get into the fields much at all to do any weeding and it put us behind planting our 1200 new plants by almost 3 weeks.  When we were able to get started, the planting went so much smoother than 2018 when we planted our first field. If you don't mind getting a little wet and muddy that is :)  

 So we got through the planting, and the field looks fantastic.  The first field that we planted in 2018 is a couple of acres away from the house,  behind a treeline, so we can't see it from the house.  We are very excited that we CAN see the new 2019 field from 3 windows, and we are looking forward to being able to see the field in bloom next spring and summer.

In July we had our first harvest!  We were beyond excited!  The flowers were amazing!  We ended up with around 700 bundles this year.  The bees absolutely loved the lavender of course and produced the best honey I have ever tasted in my life. Having customers and florists buying our fresh flowers was such a rush.  Walking into shops or to doors (we delivered one day), and having people's faces light up when they saw the lavender was just the best.

The majority of our summer was spent weeding and attending craft shows, fairs, and farmers' markets.  We have met a ton of great people and made some really good business connections.  We learned so much this summer.  We are finding our niche and settling in nicely.

The last big thing we did over the summer was open a little shop in our old farmhouse.  We got some beautiful antiques to use as display pieces, (thanks to Jim and Kathy McCabe) and filled the shop with all our lavender products. We think it looks adorable and smells amazing.  

Everything seems to be growing and working out just like we have been hoping.  Over the winter we will start making our plans for the 2020 season, which will include a Lavender Festival that we are super psyched about! We feel incredibly blessed and lucky to have such supportive friends and family in our lives helping us every step of the way.  

Thank you to everyone who reads my little blog, and to everyone who came out and shopped and supported our growing business this summer!  Your kind words and advice are greatly appreciated! We have had a hiccup or two along the way this year, but we'll save that for the next blog.