Lavender Harvest 2020 is underway. We have been busy distilling our precious Lavender Essential Oilin our on site distillery at Castle Farm. The smell in the air is glorious! 

We expect to complete the final field on Sunday 9th August 2020... but this will be weather and machinery dependent. All our remaining Lavender Walks tickets are sold out, but you can still see the final field in flower for the next few days on the Darenth Valley Footpath which runs through the farm (closest car park is Lullingstone Visitor Centre).  Our Kiosk will be open on the footpath daily. 

HOW DOES HARVEST WORK?

Our Lavender Harvester is a specially adapted Class forage harvester, with machanic cutters made in the South of France. The harvester drives up the row, cutting the Lavender flowers back, and blowing them into the trailer behind. The result is a neat green hedge, which is all pruned ahead of next-years growth. 

The Lavender needs to be harvested at precisely the right stage - 1/3 of the stem in bud, 1/3 in flower and 1/3 over-flower. This gives us the optimum oil quantity per stem. 

Once cut, the Lavender is taken to our distillery in a purpose-built trailer and steam distilled. The distillation process sees pure steam - at over 120 degrees celsius - pumped into the harvested Lavender - the Oil will then vaporise.

Once in the 'Condenser', the steam is cooled to water, and in the 'Separator', the oil will float to the top, and we can carefully drain it off. The remaining water is delicately scented, and used as our Lavender Linen Water. 

With our distillery located on site at Castle Farm, it means we can extract the pure oil within hours of the Lavender being cut - giving us exceptional oil quality... and 100% traceability. 

Once extracted, the oil needs to 'mellow', (a little like a fine wine 😉 ), to develop its soft, relaxing properties. It is then bottled, on site, for you! 

Purchase our traceable, high quality Lavender Essential Oils in our online store for easy home delivery.