Sinda Venton says her lavender farm, Carlisle Lavender in Charlotte, Michigan, started by surprise during the pandemic. Now, she views the flower operation as a opportunity to connect with her family and community.
“This was a way for our family to get together and spend time outside,” Sinda said. “Everybody pitched in was a part of it — my mother-in-law, my son, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law — the whole family. It was a way for us to be together.”
With over a mile of fragrant blooms, the farm has six different varieties of purple preciousness!
“We make soaps. We make sachets, and we also have culinary lavender,” Venton said. “We make lavender lemonade for guests to have when they come out for u-cuts.”
One of the major issues she has faced on the farm is that growing lavender can be very labor-intensive.
“There’s not a lot of machinery for that,” she explained. “It’s not a tractor kind of thing. It’s a very manual labor end, so it takes a lot of hands-on.”
Carlisle Lavender is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays while the lavender is in bloom. The first bloom usually makes an appearance in July and there will be a second bloom again in September.
