Joe Adams of Maple City is making his run in the lavender industry with his “Full Circle” Lavender business as he prepares for the second harvest of his young, purple field.
He is now beginning to distill the plant into essential oil by cutting and drying the plant.
“We harvest it, we dry it out in the sun for two or three days, and then we tie it into these bales here, which makes it easy to put it in and take it out of the distiller,” Adams said.
Sally and Steve Adams of Traverse City originally purchased the Kasson Township property in 2020 before Joe would join them in 2021. At first look, the field looked different with towering hop trellis and guy wire lining the property. Adams envisioned that something else could be planted here and lavender crossed his mind. In 2022, the idea was finally conceptualized and lavender plants were put in the ground. Now, there’s roughly 7,000 plants on the property.
One fall morning, neighbor Mike Shimek and owner of Bohemian Lavender Farms stopped by the Adams to see if they need any bulldozing done. Mike leveled out some ground and pushed over a few dead trees for Adams. After mentioning their Bohemian Lavender Farm, Adams told Shimek they were thinking about growing lavender as well.
“Mike and Mary said the area could support another lavender farm, even right next to theirs, and offered to help us get starter plants and set up our field. This was all starting to feel like it was meant to be,” Joe said.
Adams likes the plant because it’s a perennial that doesn’t need to be planted every year. The advantages include no irrigation and the low maintenance of the crop.
The other side of that, Adams continued, is unlike cherries or corn or anything like that, it’s not about as much as you grow, rather as much as you make.
Adams is diving head first into the industry by making products such as jams, soap, candles, essential oils and more.
The product he is most proud of at the moment is the lavender strawberry jam he perfected over the winter.
“I spent most of the winter working on that recipe. I wish I would have spent time making a few other products, but it was important to me to have it be as good and as tasty as it possibly could be. So I had to eat a lot of jam. But, yeah, I’m pretty proud of that,” Adams said.
In the future, he will be focused on making soap and many other products.
Adams is working on expanding his online presence to get the word out. Along with maintaining the farm, he also works full time at Oryana.
“I love gardening, so I enjoy my time out there. None of this has really felt like work to me,” Adams said. “Once your plants are in the ground, aside from you keeping the grass low and harvesting the lavender, there’s not a whole lot of cost that goes into it after you’re all set up.”
Adams admits the lavender industry could go in a lot of different ways. For example, it could turn out like France’s Rhine region, which has plenty of lavender, or it could turn out like hops. “It’s been nice for harvesting, though. I was out there trying to work in 85 plus degrees and humidity. It’s brutal. You gotta want it,” Adams said.
Shimek of Bohemian Farms says Full Circle Lavender will add to the area that is already a major draw for lavender-crazed folks. Shimek has been planting since 2015 and operating since 2017 with the business growing year-in and year-out.
Bohemian Lavender had its last day of u-pick on Sunday before moving their products to the top of the hill where distillation will begin. The distilling process will take a month to a month and a half to complete.
“People are welcome to come out while we’re distilling. They like to watch the distillation process because we run three distillers at a time,” Shimek said. “We’re busy all summer, every year.”
Sales have increased every year for the local lavender farmer in terms of products and selling more than 7,000 plants across Michigan and Ohio in the spring.
Bohemian Lavender tries to create three new products every year and their grandson made his own brown sugar scrub product this year. Bohemian Lavender has upwards of 50 lavender products right now.
“My son makes all of our jams and soaps, and we sell a lot of jam and soap in the summer, and my daughter in law makes all of our lip balm products. We make products all winter, but then after we’re open down here, maybe two weeks, we start running out of stuff again.” Shimek said. “We tell everybody, if you get into the lavender business, you have to make products. You have to have a little farm market type store and sell products because otherwise it’s probably not worth getting into.”
He added that most people start out with roughly 400 plants.
Bohemian Lavender sits on a year’s worth of oil for next year’s product while beginning to distill and age 2026’s essential oils. Lavender needs to age for about nine months before its ready for products.
“What we’re trying to do is we make everything ourselves. Our oil goes into everything. And by law, by the Michigan right to farm act, you have to produce half of what you sell,” Shimek said. “Almost everything we raise ourselves.”
If Bohemian Lavender wanted to have a bigger business, they could.
“We could plant more plants, and we don’t want to do that. We’re at a place right now. That’s all we can take care of,” Shimek said.
