10/10/2026
Daytime temperatures in the 70s, nights dipping below 50, and the maple trees starting to show their fall colors. That’s early fall in South Central Pennsylvania. 🍂
And here at Lavender Brook Farm, the lavender has a little surprise of its own—it’s blooming again!
Some of our English lavender varieties are putting on their third bloom of the season. 💜
As tempting as it is to harvest those beautiful flowers for essential oil or our other products, we’re leaving them for the bees. At this point in the season, the plants need to be preparing for winter rather than producing another crop.
Our rule of thumb is that after Labor Day, we don’t trim the plants or harvest flowers. Lavender benefits from regular trimming to keep the plants compact and encourage new growth, and the final trim needs to be done well before frost so the plants have time to heal and harden off for winter.
Ideally, we would have given all 3,000 plants their fall haircut. But once our summer crew headed back to school, there simply wasn’t enough time to get through the entire field. Thankfully, they had already gotten a good haircut during summer harvest!
So for now, we’re enjoying cool mornings, warm afternoons, colorful trees, and lavender blooms buzzing with bees. 🐝
And we’re happy to say it was a great harvest year! We distilled a record amount of lavender essential oil and still have thousands of dried bundles ready to become other products.
With the exception of mowing between the plants, the 2026 fieldwork is finished. Now the focus shifts to making products—including a few new ones I’m excited to introduce—and getting ready for the many holiday shows ahead.
The lavender will eventually turn from green to gray and go dormant for the winter. Then spring will bring us right back to the field to w**d, trim, propagate, harvest… and start all over again.
The lavender may be slowing down for the season, but things at the farm are definitely not! 💜
