JANUARY 2018• COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


47 Sweet smell of success on just eight acres


Lavender farm provides jobs for 20 in peak season


by MYRNA STARK LEADER CHILLIWACK – With a


fragrant plant like lavender, one might expect this year’s smoky Kelowna days hurt production at the eight-acre Okanagan Lavender and Herb Farm. Not so. Smoke clouds the air but unlike ash in the atmosphere, which the farm experienced in 2015, it doesn’t stick to the leaves and taint the valuable essential oil they yield. “As every year goes along,


you learn one more thing and put it in your bag of tricks,” says owner Andrea McFadden from her farm shop about a 15-minute drive from downtown Kelowna. Andrea and Dave, her


husband, are the third generation to live on her family’s land. When they arrived over 20 years ago, it was a declining orchard. Due to economics and the wine industry’s growth, they replanted six acres to white wine grapes to supply the family’s winery, Quails’ Gate. They added one row of lavender for fun, learning and a possible retirement sideline. “In 1998, we opened the little shop a couple days a week and did the farmers market,” recalls McFadden. Ten years later, winter wiped out the vineyard. By then, they’d already replaced two rows of grapes with lavender. “We thought maybe this


lavender thing has some merit. Maybe we could be open longer, plant more plants and do more finished products,” says the soft- spoken McFadden. Today, the McFaddens grow 18 varieties of drought and


Andrea McFadden ripped out grape vines to plant lavender and other hardy, aromatic herbs at her Kelowna farm. MYRNA STARK LEADER PHOTO


cold-tolerant plants including lavender, thyme, rosemary and roses. They’re hardy, often suited to Mediterranean mountainside soils and winds. “We started growing roses about 2005 and distilling them in 2009/10, but when we were able to locate the types of roses they distill in Turkey and Bulgaria and source them – that was an eight-year commitment to get the little plants and grow them out – it was a turning point.” In 2010, they borrowed


money for the farm for the first time and built a 2,000- square-foot structure housing their distilling operation, commercial kitchens, office space and a store. It replaced a tiny, 16x12-foot facility and met health and safety standards for consumables and cosmetics. “It was a big risk for us and gave us lots of sleepless


See LAVENDER on next page o Strength in numbers


Becoming an Économusée in May 2016 was a smart business move, according to Andrea McFadden of Okanagan Lavender and Herb Farm. Started in Quebec in 1992, the international network supports artisan producers performing traditional crafts such as cheesemaking, distilling and furniture making. An économusée shares its craft as part of a cultural tourism experience for visitors. The group has blossomed in northern Europe and is now in BC, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, where McFadden recently shared her experience as a guest speaker. “What’s important when you are small and doing a traditional craft is that when you hit roadblocks like bureaucracy in government, your province or municipality,


that it isn’t just you against them – that you have an organization that stands behind you,” she says.


Special on-farm agritourism events add a touch of culture tourism, including a December event inspired by the Luminaria at the Devonian Gardens in Edmonton. The mid-winter festival now one of the farm’s most popular events of the year. McFadden admits that agritourism is a


ton of work and not for the faint of heart. “The whole agritourism industry today is totally different than when we started,” she says. “It was just starting to evolve and we were fortunate to be in an area where the wine industry was evolving so we rode a bit on the coattails of the wine industry.” —Myrna Stark Leader


In full bloom. A field of lavender makes the Okanagan Lavender and Herb Farm an attractive agritourism destination. FILE PHOTO


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