Farming Methods & Ecology
How we grow lavender on a piece of land that has never been farmed industrially — and why that changes everything about the way we work.
Chalk Downland
Thirty years of rest in the earth
This chalk down, and surrounding it as far as I can see, has not been agriculturally farmed in all the time that we have known it — which is over 26 years. We are in an area of downs that is purely pastoral, so there have been no contaminants from sky or soil for decades or longer. This is why we call it virgin soil.
To protect the majesty of this land and to ensure nothing detracts from its beauty, we want to be sure that the way we practise our farming and activities at the field is sensitive to the environment and its history. That is why we are not open to the public. We will be running small group community event days through the year, and when the time is right, we will be inviting people individually or in pairs to take the butterfly walk through the field between late June and mid July.
The variety of species of butterflies, moths and flying things is so extraordinary. We have watched it grow year by year. The wildflowers that grow in the corridors between the lavender bring such magic to the place.
Regenerative Growing
Grown from seed, returned to seed
Our approach to propagation is as careful as our approach to harvest. We grow new plants from seed and cuttings taken from established stock in the field, so that the lavender we cultivate is always adapted to this particular chalk downland — never imported from somewhere with different soil, different air, different pressures.
Nothing leaves the field without something being given back to it. We do not use synthetic fertilisers or herbicides. The chalk soil does not need them, and the wildlife that depends on the downland cannot afford them. When we manage the ground between the rows, it is by hand and by eye — removing what crowds the plants, leaving what belongs there.
The process is slow, and that is exactly the point.
What the Land Tells Us
The orchids
You can tell a great deal about the health of chalk downland by what grows there of its own accord. Orchids are among the most demanding of wildflowers — they need specific soil fungi to germinate, undisturbed ground to root in, and years of quiet before they will appear at all. The fact that they grow here is not decorative. It is a reading.
Several species of native orchid flower in the meadow sections of the field each year. Bee orchids. Common spotted orchids. They take their time about it, and they do not tolerate disruption. Their presence tells us that the mycelium beneath the surface is intact, that the soil has not been compacted or poisoned, and that the thirty years of rest this land was given before we arrived were not wasted.
We manage those areas accordingly. No mowing until the seed has set. No foot traffic during the flowering weeks. The orchids are not a feature of the farm — they are a sign that we are doing things right, and we treat them as such.
Our Methods
Every stem is cut by hand
There is no machinery involved in our harvest. Every stem is cut by hand during a few short weeks in midsummer, when the plants are at their peak and the field smells like nothing else on earth. It is hot, slow work, and it has to be done carefully — cut too early and the oils are thin, cut too late and the blooms start to go over. You learn to read the plant.
After cutting, bundles are tied in small groups and hung to dry in shade, slowly. We do not rush the drying. The scent that settles into a properly dried bundle is different from one that was processed quickly — quieter, and it lasts longer. The same care goes into everything that leaves the field: sachets, oils, bundles for therapy sessions. Each one is handled by hand at every stage, from the cut to the packaging.
We farm this way because the land seems to ask for it. This is chalk downland that has been untouched by industrial agriculture for over thirty years. The ecology is fragile in the way that all healthy things are fragile — it works well because nothing has broken it. Bringing heavy machinery onto ground like this would not just disturb the crop; it would disturb something that has taken decades to get right. The hand-scale approach is slower and more expensive, but it is what the place deserves.
There is something else to it too. When you pick up a bundle of lavender that someone bundled for a care home or a hospice, you are holding the attention of the person who cut it and tied it and dried it and packaged it. That attention is not a small thing. We believe it carries forward into the life of whoever receives the flowers, even if they could never know it was there.
We also run experience days at the field for event organisers. Come and learn directly with Hannah and our volunteers. Find out more →
The Long View
A farm that gives back more than it takes
The field will not always look exactly as it does now. We are thinking in decades, not seasons. The lavender rows may move. The meadow edges may expand. The orchids may spread into ground they have not yet reached. What will not change is the principle: that this land should be in better condition when we leave it than when we arrived.
That means resisting the temptation to scale up in ways that would compromise the ecology. It means keeping the harvest hand-scale even when it would be easier not to. It means watching, recording and handing on — the orchid species, the soil fungi, the seasonal rhythms — so that whoever comes next has something to work from.
We are working toward becoming a Community Interest Company in part because it would give us the structure to hold that commitment formally. A CIC cannot simply be redirected toward profit by a new owner. The mission is locked in. That is the kind of permanence this land deserves.