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Body & Soul
Magazine April 2004 Don’t let lavender’s delicate appearance fool you. The flowering herb hails from a rough background, with roots in rocky soil and hot, sunny climes – no shrinking violet, that’s for sure. More than just a sweet-smelling scent for lotion or hand soap, this passionate-colored Mediterranean mint is considered an age-old cure-all for whatever ails you, from headaches to depression. In a family of purples, lavender is perhaps the most worldly. After all, it’s just as at home in a sock drawer as it is in a cup of tea. Lavender Herb Pepper from Blue Mountain Lavender Farm ($5; 509-529-3276; www.bluemountainlavender.com)
Suddenly Washington is bursting with blooms of lavender. Farms are cropping up from San Juan Island to the Spokane area. Why here? Why now? After all, lavender’s been around for 2,500 years. The Romans cherished it for its distinct, delicate aroma and usd it in bathing, healing, and calming fevered brows. Pilgrims brought the seductive herb to this country, and it spread westward with settlers. Now it is “one of Washington’s hottest small-farm crops,” says Katherine Baril, head of the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Service office in Jefferson County. Much credit goes to a few farmers in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley, who took up lavender cultivation in 1995 to save farmland from development and to draw tourists. The number of lavender farms has grown to at least 20. And the turnout for Sequim’s Lavender Festival, just a few hundred people the first year, swelled to nearly 25,000 last year. The climate, soil, and growing seasons in much of Washington are comparable to those of lavender’s native land, southern France, where it has reigned benignly for centuries. The crop’s success in Washington has attracted more farmers, retirees, and entrepreneurs. Like many of the best things in life, lavender’s appeal isn’t easily defined but you know it when you experience it. Depending on the variety – and there are dozens – the scent may be bold and assertive or subtle and delicate. In moments of stress, a sniff of a lavender sachet can instantly soothe. The nose knows. So do the other senses. “It’s for smelling, seeing, tasting, touching and hearing,” says Stephen Robins of Pelindaba Lavender Farm on San Juan Island. Hearing? Indeed. Stand in Pelindaba’s lavender fields and listen to the contented buzzing of bees flitting from blossom to blossom. It’s enough to make you want to go in search of some lavender honey. Which brings us to taste, and the astonishing proliferation of lavender’s culinary uses. Besides complementing the flavors of lemonade, sorbet, cookies, and other sweets, lavender is adding spark – and a bit of mystery – to vinaigrettes, marinades and pasta sauces. Often it’s joined by other herbs such as rosemary, oregano, and thyme. Karen Grimaud of Blue Mountain Lavender Farm in Touchet (west of Walla Walla), learned about cooking with the herb while living in France. She describes the desired effect: “The lavender flavor should be almost unidentifiable. Then every few seconds you get a little burst of ‘something’ that makes your palate sit up and pay attention.” Body and spirit can benefit, too, from lavender antiseptics, aromatherapy, spritzers, muscle soothers, eye pillows, and massage oils. No wonder Jadyne Reichner of Sequim’s Purple Haze Lavender Farm, calls it the “Swiss Army Knife of the herb world.” Hit the Lavender Trail Blue Mountain Lavender Farm, Touchet. Gather armfuls of the herb, enjoy a lavender lemonade, and learn how the French cook with lavender. (509) 529-3276; www.bluemountainlavender.com. Rachel Bard is a Vashon Island writer of travel guides, cookbooks, and historical fiction. Her latest novel is Queen Without a Country.
It was a sun-soaked afternoon at the farm of Jean-Paul and Karen Grimaud and business was, literally, humming. Throughout a field of aromatic, purple-crowned plants came a constant, low buzz, a noise produced by hundreds of honeybees ambling around one of Walla Walla Valley’s lesser-known crops, lavender. While lavender farms have flourished on the state’s west side, particularly in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley, cultivation of the aromatic plant has been slower east of the Cascades. In fact, a recent article by writer Rachel Bard in Western Journey magazine identified only two eastern Washington lavender farms, one near Spokane and the Grimaud’s Blue Mountain Lavender Farm near Touchet. “The irony of this is that we’re city folk,” Karen Grimaud said with a smile as she described how she and Jean-Paul came to be budding lavender barons who are now in the third year of raising what one grower called “the Swiss Army Knife of the herb world.” According to Karen, the couple decided to take up lavender farming after moving to the Walla Walla countryside about three years ago from the area near Provence, a region in south-central France with a climate and soil similar to Walla Walla’s. In France, and particularly in Provence, lavender farming is a serious business, Jean-Paul said. But he and Karen had no grand plans when they planted their first cuttings in 2000, he said. “My initial vision was just to have a big backyard,” Jean-Paul said as he stood amid the approximately 2,700 plants the couple now have under cultivation on about 1 ½ acres of drip-irrigated land. Out of the 50 types of lavender grown in the world, the Grimauds are raising four French and three English varieties. Last year “was our first small harvest,” Karen said, and this year brought a larger yield. Different types of lavender are used for different purposes. Some varieties are priced for their fragrance, others for their decorative value while still others are bred for high oil content which can be distilled into perfumes and lotions. When in season, much of the crop raised at the Blue Mountain farm is sold to flower wholesalers in Seattle for fresh-cut bouquets as well as the local Walla Walla farmer’s market. In addition, the dried herb is sold in packets for use in candles, tonics, tinctures or made into a variety of other products, including aromatic sachets and potpourris and even a custom-made soap. Surprisingly, lavender can also be used as an herb in a number of dishes, including lavender sugar, lemonade, a torte and even whipped cream. Working a lavender farm entails a lot of pruning to keep the plants trimmed into a tight, round shape needed to produce a good spray of blossoms, as well as prolong the plants’ lives. “We trim back half of the greenery in the fall and one-third in the spring,” Jean-Paul said. The work also involves a lot of weeding, as the new growth always “comes back up with the weeds,” he said. Harvest time is mid-June through mid-July, Karen
said. “Then,
it’s all go, go, go. Anything (else) you’re doing, you’re
thinking to yourself, ‘I should be cutting lavender,’” she
said.
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