The fields of lavender at Lavender Hill Farms began as food for honeybees.
Linda Longworth and her husband, Roy, were looking to keep farmland along Horton Bay Road near Boyne City intact, and to support Linda's hobby of beekeeping.
She had also heard that bees love lavender, so she planted some.
Then, when she realized bees were only frequenting the lavender plants, Linda planted some more. Then more.
Now, this summer, the Longworths are growing more than 9,000 plants in 30 varieties. Too, this summer, one of the lavender fields, about 5 years old, has come mature, says Linda. Mature plants produce better essential oil, a product Longworth is experimenting with. Last year, she produced 300 milliliters. This year, she's way ahead of that.
To extract the essential oil from lavender, Longworth fills a cylinder, basically a pressure cooker, with dried lavender -- a lot of dried lavender. She fills the cylinder with a few inches of water, which is heated. Steam runs through a coil to a separator, shaped like a pyramid, where it is cooled. The condensed steam sinks to the bottom of the separator as water while the distilled essential oil rises to the top of the separator, where Longworth draws off the oil. A 22-milliliter beaker fills quickly, putting Longworth on pace to produce substantially more oil than she did last year.
But she still won't be selling the oil in her gift shop, not yet.
"I tell people, it's like owning a vineyard. Just because you grow grapes doesn't mean you make an award-winning wine," she said.
But Longworth does sell the water drawn off from the oil, to be used as a facial toner, to soothe sunburns and bug bites. It's actually called "hydrosol," and it's a solution of the minerals and a tiny bit of infused oil from the plants.
Lavender, says Longworth, has some medicinal properties. The oil is antibacterial, a property Longworth says the honeybees have figured out. The Longworths don't put antibiotics in hives, which are typically used to keep diseases out of hives.
"We don't keep bees. We tend to observe a lot," Longworth said. "A healthy bee can survive well without us.
The hydrosol smells medicinal, with a hint of rosemary. Lavender is in the same family as rosemary, the savory herb, and mint, and lavender can actually be used in the same way as rosemary.
Local shops like Esperance in Charlevoix use Longworth's lavender to make meat rubs and herbs de provence.
Other local entrepreneurs make laundry bars, soap, jelly, shortbread cookies and tea blends. The Longworths wanted to keep their business local, cutting their own manufacturing costs while supporting local economies.
"It's easy if your goal is to use people in the area. You can create something well and do it locally," said Longworth. "The other real focus is to try to change and excite the local economy over a new crop in the area."
The new crop, she says, is well-suited to Northern Michigan climate. The limestone soils of Lavender Hill Farms have a pH of 7, smack in the middle of the 6-8 range that lavender prefers. The pH of 7 puts the farm's soil in the middle, too, of being acidic or alkaline.
Too, the farm lies very near the 45th parallel, a latitude along which big lavender fields in Washington lie, as well as the famous lavender fields in Provence, France. Quality lavender grows in New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania along the Southern Hemisphere's 45th, too.
The cool climate, she says, contributes to lavender's health, and Michigan's moderate rainfall is well suited to the plant's water needs. In fact, over-watering lavender is a good way to fail in growing the crop.
"Cold doesn't kill the plant," said Longworth. "Wet feet will kill the plant."
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Events at Lavender Hill Farms
At Lavender Hill Farms near Boyne City, the clean scent of more than 30 varieties of lavender grows from its fields.
And at the farm, more than lavender is the subject of conversation: several fiber artists gather to grow a patch of fiber-dyeing plants.
"It's pretty exciting stuff," said Shanna Robinson. "My mission is to try to encourage more people to use natural dyes."
The plants include familiar varieties such as indigo, but also other plants less readily associated with color, such as hollyhocks. Dyers use the dark colored varieties to produce a green color.
Robinson, a full-time professor of art at North Central Michigan College, will be teaching a class this fall about the art of dyeing called "Indigo Love Shibori." The one-credit course will be a practicum about the varieties of the indigo plant and how it's used.
The class is in its second year, and aims to teach students how to "get really good color that lasts without using harsh chemicals," said Robinson.
The key is in matching the dye to the material being dyed. For example, plant-based fabrics such as cotton and linen and protein-based fibers, such as alpaca fleece, take up dyes differently.
"Depending on the molecule of dye pigment, it's more or less attracted to a fiber molecule," said Robinson, who has studied the chemistry of dyeing fabric.
A solution called a "mordant" can be applied to a cloth that is stubborn in taking up dye.
During a demonstration, Robinson and fellow artists Dawn Swaim of Boyne City, who teaches oil painting at the college, and fiber artist Sandi DiSante of Charlevoix, dip strips of silk in buckets of blended indigo.
The women puree the indigo leaves in a blender, making a watery green slurry. They strain the dye into clean plastic buckets, dip the fabric in, and show the results. In the bucket, the dye shows leprechaun green rather than the brilliant blue the name "indigo" conjures.
But it's a trick of the dye, says Swaim. When the cloth is exposed to air, the dye slowly deeps to blue.
Nel Vickers owns Maplewood Farm in Charlevoix along with Bob Minto, and the two attended the workshop as well. They raise alpacas and llamas, processing and selling the fleece of the alpacas.
"My goal with Nel is that I'm beginning a sustainable living project at the college, and it would be wonderful if Nel's and Bob's fiber could be dyed with our plants," said Robinson.
Already, a lemon-yellow flag blows in the wind, staked in front of a section of the dye garden and marked with the word "weld" -- the plant used to dye that flag.
For more information and for future dates of the fabric dyeing demonstration, visit www.lavenderhillmichigan.com or Robinson's blog at thedyegarden.wordpress.com.
