Tip No.3: Growing Lavender for the Markets
Smaller organic farms can grow lavender, adding it to their farmers’ market offerings, CSA boxes or organic flower arrangements. Lavender can also be dried, used in recipes and alcohol, used to make personal care products and used to make goodies like infused chocolates, sleep pillows, and organic baby toys.
Lavender varieties come in all shapes, sizes, and shades of purple, so before growing lavender consider if you want to grow a culinary or decorative type, how much space you have, fragrance quality, the sort of climate you’re in and how much time you want to spend pruning.
How much money can a lavender business make?
Some small growers tend a few dozen plants in their backyard, and are happy to make a few hundred dollars. Larger operations on acreage can bring in hundreds of thousands, especially if they also produce and sell value-added products. Purple Haze Farms, in Sequim, Washington, for example, routinely grosses over a million dollars a year with about 8 acres of lavender. Fresh lavender bouquets are a very profitable way to sell lavender. Most growers sell direct to the retail public, either from their garden or at the local farmer’s market. At our local Saturday market, lavender bunches sell for $6 each. A 20′ x 20′ growing area can produce around 300 bunches each year, worth $1,800. Larger plots are even more profitable. A quarter-acre can produce about 3,000 bunches, worth $18,000. Unsold lavender bunches can be dried and sold to crafters and florists, who use the bunches for dried floral arrangements. Also, the flower buds can be removed from the bunches and sold or used to make sachets and other value-added products. Other lavender products, such as lotions and soaps, bring 500% or more markups from the price of the basic ingredients.
For more updates on ways to make money on your small farm, Check out tomorrows blog.
Haven’t read previous tips? Read Tip No.1 here
Read Tip No.2 here
