Page 8 - Harnett Life Summer 2022

of sight and smell. not seeds, in trays to grow for seven to eight weeks, she said,
before moving them to the field. Though some agriculture
While 2-acres of lavender are the farm’s mainstay and flagship experts warned her that the Harnett County climate and soil
crop, it is one Tammy decided to try after falling in love with were not right for growing lavender, her ideas worked.
the idea from a video she watched about an Oregon woman
and her mother who visited a lavender farm. She added cut “I have 4-5 lavender varieties,” she explained. “We used weed
flowers this year, everything from A to Z, ageratum to zinnias, block fabric on our rows, but we do not have to fertilize or
and much in between. Amaranth, aster, celosia, gomphrena, mulch the plants. We have big wide middles and drive the
gladiolus, lisianthus, marigolds, nigella, snapdragons, statice, lawn mower right between rows. There’s no chemical use,
strawflowers and sunflowers which are of many sizes and vari- and we don’t even have to worry about deer or rabbits because
eties, all planted and harvested daily to keep a readily available they do not like Lavender’s smell. We only had to irrigate the
supply on hand. She researched what flowers most brides want plants when they were young, two or three times; that’s it.
in their bouquets and weddings and what people most order Lavender does not like to be too wet or have wet feet, as they
from florists before deciding what she would try growing that say, and with our farm’s sandy soil and full sun, thrives here
also suited her landscape. and stays dry.”

The self-taught flower grower watched podcasts and YouTube Lavender blooms in the late spring to early summer mostly
videos, read books and attended online farm-type schools to in the month of June and often again in the fall; subsequently,
become well versed in the trade. She joined the Association of the Currins prune the plants back each year, careful not to ex-
Specialty Cut Flower Growers, too. tract the woody stems. Next, they wait for the process to start
again. Purple Bloomers held many farm tour days this sum-
Her hard work is paying off, and now she finds herself busy mer during the season, times in which she instructed visitors
with her new business nearly year-round. on how and where to cut lavender on the stems and what to do
with it after cutting.
“I started harvesting sunflowers in April after planting them
in late winter,” Tammy said, “and they will yield until maybe Flower fans have gone out in droves this summer to snip the
late October. I plant nearly 600 seeds a week, so they come off lavender, baskets and scissors in hand, and follow Tammy’s
in stages, and I can have fresh sunflowers every week.” She instructions on preserving their pickings.
plants the seeds in starter cups, 50-72 cell trays, and they go
from the greenhouse to a shade tent to the outdoors, on and off Specifically, the method involves letting bundles dry in a cool,
again, to harden the flowers to survive outside when they do go dark place for two weeks, hanging them upside down to pre-
into the ground. serve the stems and buds.

When Tammy got started on the lavender, she put 700 plugs,

Page 7 Page 8 Harnett Life ~ Summer 2022