Farm News

April 2009
The farm and shop & cafe is now open. The weather is glorious but with a spring chill, and everything looks great. Hopefully the sun will bring the lavender on and the harvest will be a good one. The shop has a fantastic range of lavender goods as well as jewellery, and many other items. The cafe is buzzing and we are churning out our fantastic range of cakes, breakfasts and lunches.

January 2009
Happy New Year! How time flies! We were lucky enough to enjoy some balmy autumn weather leading up to Christmas which meant the gardens looked lovely for a good long time. Sprigs was busy and many customers enjoyed being able to wander around the farm, feed the chickens and watch us go about the business of tidying up the farm etc. Our Halloween Party was a roaring success and tickets sold out way in advance - it seems we may be pressured to do it again this year!! And, as Christmas approached, we enjoyed working with our artist in residence - Stephanie Cormack Dexter - who turned the bottling room into a studio and produced some stunning paintings of the farm. We are now closed until early April but the work goes on.... we are continuing to replace some of the older lavender plants, tidying the flower beds, greenhousing the tender lavenders and generally making plans and improvements for the season ahead. And we are still feeding the doves and chickens! We look forward to seeing you.
 
September 2008
Although the lavender season is now over, Sprigs, our cafe and shop remains open until December 20th. The cafe is still serving all-day breakfasts, lunch, teas, coffees and delicious cakes. We use fresh, local and seasonal ingredients and the menu is always original and varied.  We even have a fun (and healthy!) kids breakfast menu. Sprigs shop has the full range of Jersey Lavender products as well as a large selection of general gifts, cards, candles, ceramics and much more. And as we head into autumn and winter, there are plans for shopping evenings, halloween parties and christmas events. Watch this space!

August 2008 - The lavender harvest is over but.....
we are distilling other herbs such as Eucalyptus, Rosemary, Tea Tree, Bay and Cypress. The lavender harvest has been OK - reasonably warm, and not too wet (unlike 2007). The other herbs are used in many of our formulations, and three times a day we are still doing our talks in the distillery, demonstrating the oil extraction process, and explaining how we take our crop and turn it into our lovely products available in our SPRIGS shop & cafe.

June 2008 - Midsummer sees the harvest begin!
The lavender harvest has begun this week so we are in full-swing here on the farm. The warm, sunny weather has meant good oil yields so far and has made the drying of our cut lavender very successful. And it is all smelling wonderful!

Pick Your Own has also started so come down and see us and harvest your very own bunches of lavender!

May 2008
The farm opened to the public for the 2008 summer season earlier this month in a blaze of sunshine and glorious weather. Since then rain has been rather abundant but, even so, the lavender rows are already showing their first flush of colour.

Everything is looking lush and green and we all have our fingers crossed that the sun will now shine more regularly and help the lavender produce a bumper oil harvest.

In the meantime we have been distilling our eucalyptus which is very much in demand by our customers and is of an excellent grade this year.

Our first guests were a large group of World Jersey Cattle Bureau delegates from all over the world, attending a conference here in Jersey in celebration of the Jersey breed (of cows!!). Cows and lavender are not normally connected but in this case, because the lavender farm used to be a dairy farm -the home of a prize-winning cow called Natalie''s Nell, bred by my great-grandfather - it was an interesting slot in their very busy schedule and we enjoyed having them. 

Our cafe, Sprigs, has had a bit of a make-over and Kate Whatuwira, our chef, is once again producing inspired menus, delicious cakes and wonderful breakfasts. Sprigs shop is fully stocked with our complete range of Jersey Lavender products and oils as well as many other gift items, most of which are exclusive to us.

We will keep you updated on harvest dates, and the various special events we have planned for this year.

January 2008
We are well into our winter time now, and in the midst of preparations for 2008. There is always plenty of tidying up to be done - fences to mend, painting, gardening, and generally sprucing things up.

Some of our lavender are getting a bit old now so we are about to dig up a few thousand and when the weather warms a little in March we shall replant with younger lavenders that were taken as cuttings in 2006. We will also prune some of the older plants very hard as we have done before, contrary to advice in most gardening books! This process has produced young-looking, compact lavenders again for us in the past.

We are also planning on extending our season. Whilst the farm, gardens & distillery will close in September 2008 as usual, we will keep the shop and café open until Christmas. We hope that local residents as well as visitors in Jersey will discover a unique and pleasant shopping experience and enjoy the quality, excellent value-for-money culinary delights in our café.

October 2007
Our 2007 summer season on the farm was a very busy one despite the disappointing weather and abundant rain! As always, we had many visitors from all over the world and we are still amazed (and heartnened) by how widespread the interest in lavender and lavender farming is.

The lack of sunshine did affect our lavender harvest this year and oil yields were quite low but the oil quality remains high. The flowering was still stunning and not as late as we were expecting.

Pick Your Own Lavender was a new activity for 2007 and very well received. It was great to see so many people of all ages enjoying the experience and the wonderful smell! 

We also ran several events on the farm in July and August in conjunction with local farmers/producers which were well-attended and good fun. John Hackett brought some piglets down for a day and Manor Farm loaned us an adorable jersey calf who decided the lavender was wonderful and kept trying to lie down amongst the rows! Visitors enjoyed entering the Guess the Weight and Choose a Name competitions as well as seeing the animals up close.

John Craven from Country File came to film on the farm (in the rain!), our Cafe chef featured in a food programme on Channel TV about cooking with lavender and we were visited by a number of national and international journalists for publications as far away as Japan.

Behind the scenes we were also busy completing the re-packaging of our product range which now looks vibrant and fresh and reflects the quality of what we produce.

Although the farm is now closed for the winter, we remain busy with the mail order of our products and with plans for next season, and we look foward to keeping you up to date with any new developments.