NICE TO MEET YOU!
BLKROBN Farms began as a seed of desire for a wholesome way of living and the possibility of the perfect unfolding potential of our relationship with nature!
We are Beth and Larry Italia, owners of BLKROBN Farms and we LOVE lavender! We manage our farm and maintain our fields using sustainable farming practices.
We presently have 9 acres of land, with over an acre of Lavender including Lavandula x Intermedia and Lavandula Angustifolia. We harvest our lavender for several purposes including dried lavender bundles, dried lavender buds for crafting and culinary, and we steam distill our lavender to make lavender essential oil and hydrosol.
We cover our 9 acres with ongoing plantings of lavender. There is nothing as fulfilling as tending to this piece of earth we feel so grateful to be a part of. We invite you to enjoy the lovely essence of lavender, beautiful mountain views, and the magnificent expansion it offers.
Thank you for being here!
visit us
LATE JUNE - JULY 2024
SUSTAINABLE &
ECO FARM
ORGANICALLY
CULTIVATED
HANDCRAFTED
PRODUCTS & GIFTS
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.
