Thursday, April 25, 2013

20th annual Spring Daze Arts & Crafts Festival

Our FIRST face-to-face event 
of the year!!

This weekend, we will be setting up our purple tent at the 20th annual Spring Daze Arts & Crafts Festival located at the 310 acre Fred G. Bond Metro Park in Cary, NC. The show is April 27th from 9:00AM to 5:00PM and is a rain or shine event.  

From the official Spring Daze Arts & Crafts Festival website-
The festival is filled with wonderful arts and crafts, your favorite festival foods, community based civic groups handing out information on things you can get involved with, and entertainment. Children will be delighted by activities just for them in the Children’s Village and will be invited to exercise their imagination as they play in the always popular Lazy Daze Playground – the center of the village. In the Earth Day area of the festival, you can find out how to play a role in preserving our natural resources and protecting the environment. This is the perfect family event to learn more about what you can do to make every day Earth Day.
We will be offering our lovely range of lavender products PLUS many varieties of lavender plants for your garden including Provence, Hidcote, Hidcote Giant and Otto Quast to name a few.

We will also be sampling our famous lavender lemonade and a few tasty lavender treats as well.

This show is one of the best spring shows around! We hope to see you this weekend!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Lavender Spa Treatments for Mom

We recently received an order for multiple bags of our freshly shucked lavender florets and several bunches of dried lavender to be used by the Four Season Hotel and Resort in Baltimore, MD. Upon further investigation, this hotel has a glorious spa and is actually using our lavender to help promote their Mother's Day spa specials in this May. Can you image anything more luxuriant?


The hotel website describes this 10,200 sq ft spa as one of the best in Baltimore with 11 treatment rooms plus two specialty suites with deep soaking pools and one VIP suite. There are several "Celebrate Mother's in May" spa specials that include overnight accommodations in the hotel, a range of spa treatments, lunch, flowers and other free gifts. Doesn't that sound wonderful?


If you're looking for something special and lavender-ific to honor a mother in your life, the spa at the Four Seasons Hotel in Baltimore, MD might just be the gift for you! Please click on the links in this blog post for more information...


(The images in this blog post are borrowed from the Four Season Hotel and Resort in Baltimore, MD website and were used to show the beauty of the spa located at the hotel.)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Wakey Wakey...

This last week and a half of warm (who am i kidding, HOT) weather has finally pushed our lavender field out of dormancy!!!



Welcome back sweet beauties...we can not wait to see the banquet of blooms that you will produce soon!

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Finding Local Lavender Flavors

Lately, I have noticed that the yummy flavor of true lavender is becoming more widely available. It has been so VERY exciting to try some of the lavender creations we have found local.

At the Hunt Street Art & Food Truck Market (http://artmarketatvegametals.com/) which is located directly beside the Durham, NC Farmers Market on Saturday's, we discovered the mobile Milk & Honey Bakery (http://milkhoneydurham.com/). The owner Shelley is a lovely women who among other things, bakes the most delicious cheesecake bites. One of her new flavors this year is "Chocolate Lavender". Which is Chocolate Cheesecake infused with lavender and topped with a lavender infused whipped cream and grated chocolate. OH MY!! I clearly had to purchase one and trust me, the picture does not do this little teat any justice. It was wonderfully delicious!! So creamy, so chocolatey and oh so lavenderish! A definite MUST TRY for lavender lovers...

Have you found a new food item made with lavender...local or main stream? Let us know because we would LOVE it try it!

If you are interested in trying Shelley's lavender cheesecake bites, make sure to check out the Milk & Honey Bakery website listed above and see her schedule for when and where she will be selling her baked delights. Stay tuned on this blog for more lavender treat reviews!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Pharsalia "in the News" Again!


Pharsalia and Foxie Morgan are in the news again...this time you can find the article about this wonderful place in the March 2013 issue of Country Gardens.




The beautiful article focuses on Foxie's love and expertise of growing peonies...don't you just love this picture from the magazine that shows her beautiful peonies against a backdrop of lavender?


Pharsalia and Foxie herself are an experience that shouldn't be missed...but don't take my word for it. Won't you join us there in Tyro, VA on June 19th? Spots are filling up quickly so check out the Pharsalia website for sign-up details.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Raffle to win $100 Gift Certificate


Try your luck to win a 
$100 sunshine lavender farm gift certificate 
to spend at this year’s 
Lavender Harvest Celebration, June 1 & 2, 2013!

Annie is one woman who works on two farms. sunshine lavender farm and a LOCAL NONPROFIT, The North Carolina Therapeutic Riding Center. It serves children, teens and adults with special physical, mental, emotional and social challenges through horse-centered programs. (Daisy, one of the therapy ponies, will join us for the Celebration again this year!)
The Riding Center is currently running a "Paint Your Pony" campaign. Annie has volunteered to sponsor Pinto, one of the hard-working therapy horses on this farm and you can help too! PLUS, you will be entered into a raffle to win a $100 gift certificate to sunshine lavender farm to be used at the June 1st & 2nd Harvest Celebration.

How to Enter the raffle?
  1. FIRST click to read the horse's story- Pinto Stories
  2. SECOND, to enter the raffle, please Donate $5 to Team Pinto.
  3. THIRD, select sunshine lavender farm  in the “Donation Credited To” window. 
The result? You are entered to WIN a $100 gift certificate to spend at this years Lavender Harvest Celebration at sunshine lavender farm!

We can CELEBRATE making a difference together! The WINNER will be chosen in one month on April 17 (which happens to be Annie’s birthday. Shhh.) Help her celebrate with a gift of community that YOU can be a part of too! Thank you.


A little more about Pinto the therapy horse-

My name is Pinto, and I am a popular guy here at NCTRC. My full name is Pinto Bean but I like to go by Pinto for short. I am easy to spot in the pasture because of my brown and white coat and very cool black and white mane.

I absolutely love when my riders and volunteers scratch my belly where the girth goes, it just feels so good! I like the gentle riders best, as I do not like loud noises and can be a little sensitive. The good thing about my sensitivity is that I am a good listener and I respond very well to commands. I really enjoy being a therapy horse, especially when I get to sniff and touch my nose on all of the toys!


Please join in my efforts to raise $2,500 for the Paint Your Pony! Campaign. I would like to continue my work here at NCTRC and earn all my stripes and I would so appreciate your help. Thanks for your support!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

We have plants...

With the arrival of spring, we are again providing our farm friends with the same superb quality plants as in years past. But this year, you can purchase on-line!


As of last week, we have the first round if plants for 2013 listed on Etsy. For starters this year, we are offering Hidcote Giant, Munstead and Otto Quast. Each listing in Etsy is for 6 lavender plants (4" each) of the each variety listed above. These plants will be packed well and shipped in a large USPS Priority Mail box. A detailed planting guide will be included.


A few plant specifics:


1. Hidcote Giant plants produce large medium purple blooms in mid June. It grows 24” around with grey-green foliage and a stem length of 20-24”. The blooms are lovely in fresh and dried arrangements. For a season of lavender blooms, plant with May bloomer, lower growing Hicote, and other June bloomers like Provence (early June) and Grosso (mid June).



2. Munstead plants are a remarkably pretty lavender in full bloom! It shows off its violet flowers on a bushy 24” plant in mid June. Give this one plenty of room because when it is happy, it will grow beyond its 2 feet in diameter size. The fragrance is intense, so place it close to your back door, front sidewalk or mailbox where it will greet guests with its soothing scent. Very pretty in the garden with Jean Davis and Otto Quast.



3. Otto Quast is such a happy lavender! This is the first to bloom, oftentimes in April. Grows 24” around with a stem length of 12”. The flower resembles a bumble bee, with antennae or a bunny with ears. A pretty violet color. It's nice planted with other red-purple shades of lavender like Jean Davis or Munstead.



Will you be joining us for the Spring Daze in Cary, NC on April 27th? You can also pre-order you plants for that show. Just contact us via sunshine lavender farm email and we will make the appropriate arrangements.