PNW Farm Tour: Lavender, Lavender, Lavender!

Today several wonderful things happened.
First we had an appearance of the sun and partly blue skies--
for awhile.
Secondly, when Farmer Boy and I were outside with our grass-eating goats
I mean dogs
we saw a hawk
(something that always makes me very happy)!

And the third wonderful thing...

at least one of my lavender plants

is looking purple lately and smells really, really good

(in fact, I have one of the fragrant stalks next to me right now and the scent is heavenly)!

So this means that lavender season can't be too far off

and it also reminds me of a promise I made about a year ago..

to post some photos from our visit to another PNW farm,

Mountainside Lavender!

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Please enjoy the post and if you have a minute, and

want to extend all of this lavender goodness,

feel free to visit their website at the link below.

There you'll get to hear and see

an incredibly beautiful video (love the song AND all of the photos),

check out some recipes, etc:)

Mountainside Lavender is located not too far from a big city

(Portland-northwest Oregon, just south of the Columbia River and Washington state)

but it's a world away!
The farm was peaceful the weekday that we visited

and the views incredible;

you could even see three of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains from up there!

At the farm, they have a wonderful farm store,

the 'Lavender Store',

where you will find many lavender goodies--both edible and not!

You can also buy plants from the greenhouse up there so you can have some lavender goodness at home (I grow lavender in wine barrel halves and a raised bed;

handy if you don't have a large yard)

Here is one small view of some of their lavender goodies!

Are you feeling the wonderfulness of purple yet?

Hang tight and keep scrolling...

I just loved this chair on their storage unit--

it was SO Americana and a good photo to post for this weekend!

Lavender, lavender, lavender--beautiful, fragrant, good for a lot of things--

lavender!

If you stand along one side, you see the plants are all in long rows;

from other sides it looks like the fields are non-stop lavender!

Oh--each row is well marked with labels indicating the type of lavender and

the farm family there were very helpful and friendly (liked their dog too)!

Some of the bunches my best friend and I collected to bring home. Don't you wish you had been with us on the trip? My car smelled so heavenly all the way home; lavender is just SO much better then a car freshener!

I should say that in the basket above there are both culinary and

non-culinary varieties of lavender.

Oh and despite the name, lavender,

doesn't just come in purple as you can see in some of the field photos.

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Don't you love these baskets they let us use while we were there?

I have to find a source for them!

You are charged by the bunch--by the amount you can get your fingers around.

I thought it was a great deal---and my hand smelled heavenly when we were done:)

Another view of one of the lavender fields--

all of this makes me SO want to turn our current over-the-head-weed-garden,

formerly known as the main veggie garden,

into a lavender field.

Contented sigh:)

Blessings,

Aimee

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Usual Disclaimer: Aimee is not associated in any way with Mountainside Lavender or its owners; however they graciously agreed to let me post the photos of their farm here, on this blog, and for that I am most grateful! My traveling companion and I both had a great time at the farm and as you will soon find out at the other places we visited that day so I really am excited to share our experience with you :) Trip taken in June 2009.

All I can say is that if you are not in the PNW but have a lavender farm nearby...well you know--you just have to go:)

Check it out!!

Link: Mountainside Lavender farm website here.