Farming Lavender

Farming Lavender

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Garden Gate Farms is a working lavender farm in Medical Lake, Washington that, as their website says, “not only grows flowers, but people!” Owner Vivian Nielsen talks about how a special education student teacher such as herself decided to take up lavender farming.

NIELSEN: I worked with very severe students and I had some lavender in my garden and I started using it in my classroom and noticed that these students’ anxiety during testing situations was greatly lessened. So, I started to do a bunch of research and found out that lavender has been used for years to reduce panic attacks and anxiety - as one of the few things in the world that actually keeps you alert and yet calm at the same time.

This prompted Nielsen to grow yet more lavender.

NIELSEN: As I grew lavender I met more and more women who were either interested in farming or interested in making a profit off their piece of land. I received calls from women from all over the United States saying “hey, I want to do what you do, but I want to make a profit”. So I found myself just answering questions and teaching people how to farm for a living.

Nielsen says she had to learn by “the school of hard knocks”.

NIELSEN: I put in my first few rows of lavender and learned by the school of hard knocks on what to do and what not to do because I knew I wanted to do it organically. So I put in about 150 plants in, then just kept on adding and now I have about 2500 different types of lavender plants that are on my farm.

Tomorrow Nielsen will talk about how she and her family just keep adding to the farm experience.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.