Fresh, Fine Lavender from Fields in California
Connoisseurs will tell you lavender is like wine. It’s not all the same and for growers, it isn’t ALL fine. One event celebrates wine and lavender at the same time! Matanzas Creek Winery Days of Wine and Lavender June 1-July 31, 2018 offers an appreciation of two of nature’s best.
If you’ve never visited a lavender farm we highly recommend it as you see it grow and learn the simplicity of processing it into oils with a machine that looks like a moonshine still. Once you learn about its natural benefits for sinuses, as a bug repellent, and something to soothe your nerves in a cup of tea, a piece of cake or cookies, you’re likely to grow fond of lavender. You may even be hooked and have to make it part of your daily living.
After our visit to a Central Coast lavender farm we took some home and went through a $20 bottle in approx. a year. Not knowing better, we found some lavender oil sold on Amazon much cheaper and ordered it. One lavender grower had nothing nice to say, explaining that the product from another country was doctored up with lesser quality oils and injected fragrances. Bah!
So here’s your chance to head for a lavender farm or event and speak to California’s very own growers and sellers. Maybe they’ll give you a sales pitch but generally what you’ll experience is pure enthusiasm from hardworking people who discovered nature offers many gifts such as lavender which grows well in California’s fine climate.
California lavender festivals
- FLINN SPRINGS: Lavender Day June 9, 2018
- CHERRY VALLEY: Lavender Festival June 7-10, June 14-17, 2018
- RUMSEY: Cache Creek Lavender Festival June 9-10
- PLACERVILLE: Bluestone Meadow Lavender Festival June 23-24
- OJAI: Lavender Festival June 30
- VALLEY CENTER: Keys Creek Organic Lavender Farm open to the public in May and June only
- PASO ROBLES: Lavender Festival July 7
