Hello again, and welcome! Time for another peek into our Lillards Lavenders journey.
Let me introduce ourselves a little here. Some of you may know me (Kim); others will be more familiar with Dennis. Many of you might also know our daughter Erika, and son-in-law Anthony. A few of you know (and maybe love!) us all (thanks, family!) However it may be that you know us, here’s where you’ll get to know all of us now in our new roles as lavender entrepreneurs.
Dennis has been hard at work on the farming side of things – plowing, discing, irrigating, planting, and the all-important harvesting. For my part, I have been working more on the technical side of things to begin with – website building with Anthony, social media outreach, email lists, etc. Erika has been hard at work setting up the business side of things – accounting, government forms, payroll, etc. And of course, all of us have been planting, trimming, propagating, and weeding. Oh, the weeding!
While Dennis has been researching the best places to get oil distillers, commercial irrigation systems and farming implements for his tractor, I’ve been looking for the best lavender products and containers, debudders, and permits for selling lavender products. Both of us have taken classes in lavender oil distillation, growing, harvesting, drying and debudding, to name a few. Erika has been researching the cottage kitchen industry and its requisite permits and taking classes and watching videos on value-added products. Anthony has applied his previous entrepreneurial knowledge (he’s been a small business owner already!) to the business side of our lavenders, such as our POS system.
Finally, here’s a big component we’ve added since last November – Farmers Markets! You can find us at the Placer County Farmers Markets at the Fountains in Roseville on Tuesdays from 8:30 am to 1pm, and between the Fairgrounds and Old Town in Auburn on Saturdays from 8am to 1pm. We’re also currently at Fowler’s Farmers Market at the corner of Sierra College Boulevard and Highway 193 in Lincoln on Sundays from 9am to 1pm. Since we’ve been at these markets, many of you have asked if our farm is open to the public. As of now, we are still building our lavender rows and fields, so our farm is not yet open to the public, but we do plan to include agritourism (a fancy way of saying a visit to the lavender farm) in our future. Stay tuned into our website (www.lillardslavenders.com) and social media (Facebook and Instagram) to find out when that will happen.
We are so looking forward to sharing these things with all of you and bringing you the products and services we produce from our lavender varieties as we grow. And speaking of varieties – but wait! That’s a whole other topic for another blog. You’re going to love reading it, I know, so stay tuned for next time!