Local company comes out smelling like ... lavender

 

Last updated 7/17/2019 at 10:37am

Mary Jo MOnteith in the family lavender crop in Spring Canyon. - Jacob Wagner photo

Working with lavender is some of the most pleasant smelling work a person can do.

Mary Jo Monteith, who lives on 38 acres out along SR-174 in the general area of Spring Canyon, grows about 1,400 lavender plants on her property that looks like a big patch of purple from the highway.

She's grown lavender there for a dozen years or so, originally to just help suppress the weeds, and has made soap and sold a few lavender plants over the years.

This year, a new and different opportunity arrived.

Monteith gets emails from Washington State University, one of which detailed a Washington State Department of Agriculture grant program to help Washington growers of fresh-cut flowers.

"This effort to help Washington cut flower growers get more of their blooms in grocery stores, where most people buy their flowers, is part of a project funded through a Washington State Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant," a description from Laura Ridenour of the WSDA reads. "The grant has also provided for the development of marketing materials, research on Washington's floral industry and consumer demand, as well as trainings for flower growers to improve their businesses and develop access to new markets."

The three-year, nearly $250,000 project was funded by the WSDA, which used some of that money to contract with the Washington State Farm Bureau to help. The program began in September of 2017 and will be completed in September 2020.

Through that program, Monteith applied to sell her lavender wholesale to Charlie's Produce whose headquarters are in Seattle. That company has a facility in Spokane and in other US cities and has over 600 floral customers, including grocery stores, restaurants, and other institutions in Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, California, Nevada, and Arizona.

Monteith is putting a dozen bundles, or bouquets, in a box and selling them to Charlie's Produce to be used for floral arrangements in grocery stores.

Monteith said that she, her family and other workers put together about 20 boxes one day, and 15 another, and they're still at it.

Monteith's mother, Edeline Davis, her father, Ted Davis, husband Mervin, and workers Randy Young and Will Williams are helping with the project, operating under the name D&M Gardens.

Out of the dozen bundles in each box, six are Grosso, a purple lavender, and six are White Spike lavender, Monteith explained.

She grows several varieties of lavender, including White Spike, Grosso, Thomas, Pink Melissa, Provence, and Royal Velvet, each with their own unique characteristics and scents.

While showing a reporter around her lavender fields, she casually shakes bumble bees off a lavender shrub and uses a hand tool resembling a scythe to slice off a handful of lavender stalks.

She said the bees seem to sleep in the lavender. "I was finding some down in there like, 'I'm not awake yet, don't bug me,' " she joked.

"It's really drought hardy; that's one of the reasons why we got it," Monteith said about all the lavender plants, "and the deer won't eat it. We weren't expecting to sell it at all, just expecting to enjoy it."

With good ground cover, Monteith said, after the plants are established they don't really need to be watered. The little rain the Coulee area gets is enough for the plants for years on end, with lavender plants lasting about 15 years.

Monteith hopes the program continues and that they continue to sell to Charlie's Produce. She plans on replacing some of the plants on her property and growing more and better shrubs.

There are also about 50 alpacas on her property.

"That's a whole other story," Monteith said.

 

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