A love of lavender.
A connection to the land.

BLKROBN Farms began with Beth and Larry Italia’s shared desire for a wholesome way of living and a deeper connection with nature. That dream took root on nine acres in Ramona, California, where a love of lavender grew into something worth sharing.

With over an acre devoted to lavender, including Lavandula × intermedia and Lavandula angustifolia, the farm has been lovingly tended using sustainable, organic growing practices. Our lavender finds its way into fragrant dried bundles, buds for crafting and culinary use, and steam-distilled essential oil and hydrosol.

Caring for this little piece of earth has brought us so much joy, inspiration, and gratitude. As BLKROBN enters a new chapter, that connection to the land continues to inspire the products we share with you.

Curious about the farm, our lavender, or which products might be right for you? We’d love to hear from you. While the farm is currently closed to visitors, you’re always welcome to send us a note and explore our online shop.

Thank you for being part of our story!

WHY BLKROBN?

BLKROBN is short for Black Robin. The Black Robin is a bird who lives on the Chatham Islands ,off the coast of New Zealand. Dating back to the 1970’s, this very rare bird was on the brink of extinction. The Black Robin is not a strong flying bird, therefore, it could not leave its island to find a safer place to live to rebuild its colony. The island had suffered destruction from that of human beings jeopardizing the lives of the birds and creatures who lived there. It wasn’t until a very thoughtful man and his team dedicated themselves to the revival of the colony.

It touched my heart and inspired me to believe in the idea that no challenge is too great and if we stick together we can rise above the challenges. That is what we experienced upon arrival of our property. We were faced with the reality that our well would not support our endeavor to grow much of anything let alone our essential needs. We also learned that our location was not exactly a place where trees and plants might survive due to the severe winds. We called upon the spirit of the Black Robin and held strong in our beliefs that we too could overcome these challenges.

That is why we named our farm BLKROBN Farms and we hope you too will gain inspiration in whichever way you are needing it.

Watering our farm

After much consideration of options to support any crops or trees, we decided to focus on capturing our rain water to water our farm. At first the idea seemed daunting, but now it has become an obsession.

We presently store 85,000 gallons of rain water that we are able to capture per winter to last from the months of May through October.

We connect the storage systems with pumps that allow us to move the water through drip lines. Our farm is happy!

HARVESTING LAVENDER

Lavender blooms once a year here on the farm. It usually begins at the beginning of June and ends at the end of July. It’s our yearly marathon.

We harvest our lavender for various applications. We always begin harvesting the lavender for dried bundles and buds as the timing of this is important in order to achieve a long lasting fragrant dried bundle that holds a deep blue color after dried. That means when about half of the flowers have emerged from the plants, we begin harvesting. We gather them into bundles and attach them with rubber bands and paper clips so we can hang them upside down on a chain in our building to dry.

It takes a few weeks until they have dried. Once they are dried we store them in boxes in an upright position until we clean them to make into beautiful wrapped bundles for sale. But first we take time to enjoy the beautiful smell of lavender.

LAVENDER PROCESSING

We also take some of the bundles and process them in our Besel Lavender Processing Machine.

This machine removes the buds and dust so we can use them in our sachets or for culinary purposes.

We purchased this machine from besellavenderprocessor.com. We like the efficiency of it. We also like the inventor, Ricardo Besel, who has dedicated so much of his life to inventing this machine!

DISTILLATION

The last portion of our harvest marathon involves distillation. We use a 60 liter copper still that we purchased from Portugal. They make beautiful quality stills.

This process is a steam distilled process where we begin by boiling the pot of water that sits beneath the plant material. Once boiled, the steam from the water travels up through the plant material and out through the condenser into a separating funnel. What comes out into the funnel is lavender essential oil and Lavender hydrosol. The hydrosol makes a great refreshing face mist to keep your skin hydrated and clear. And the essential can be used for several life affirming applications.

We leave the distillation for last because as the lavender sits under the sun, each of the many buds has a chance to flower and once the flowers begin to dry up we begin harvesting for distillation. Usually by then the stems will begin to droop from the weight of the oil in the buds. We also only harvest a small portion of the stems because through experimentation our best oil comes from the buds. So we take extra care to cut slightly below the buds.