Welcome And Travel Philosophy

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Hi, I'm Alexa.

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And I'm Rory. And together we are the Rowies. We're a husband-wife duo and longtime travelers who believe travel isn't just about where you go. It's about how it shapes the way you live when you get home.

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On the Rowies podcast, we explore where to travel, how to travel, and why to travel. Do our lens of creativity, moments, and everyday life.

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We're calling it this feature wrong dual. As we travel near and far, we're sharing the ways we bring inspiration home, great to food, daily rituals, business and design ideas, and the renovation of our historic picture upload.

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It's all about making travel tangible, livable, and meaningful long after they've been.

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So whether you're planning your next adventure or reimagining the life you're building at home, you're in the right place.

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Now, let's get into today's episode.

Glamping In A Conestoga Wagon

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Y'all, we know how the West was won.

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Yo, we slept in a wagon last time. A wagon.

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Yeah, we took it to heart.

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Old school, well, old school modernized wagon.

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You know, they say go west, young man. So I grabbed my family. Not that I'm I'm a young man still. You two are. So I grabbed my wife and our cats, and we headed west. And we ended up at the Florin family lavender farm, sleeping in a wagon. A wagon lavender.

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On the lavender farm. It is super, super cool.

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Ultimate glamping.

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You can I did on Airbnb, and we will put the link to that in the show notes. And so, yeah.

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And that's where we currently are, right now. That's where we're yes, we're at the farms in their event space next to the wagon.

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And and even as fun as the wagon is we are here with Tom Florin of Florin Family Farms. And uh, so Tom, thank you for seeing us today.

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Depends on who you ask. Yeah, I'll take the credit while I can't. Ask the wife and kids.

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Yeah, the farming Florin. Yeah, you have a lot of work and five kids. You are that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

We got home with five kids. We had four boys, one girl. I'm the opposite. Four girls and one boy. Wow. And in our current family, our oldest is a boy and four daughters. We had two boys, one girl right in the middle, two more boys.

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And right now, we're sitting in front of a painting that his daughter painted. And so that's really, really fun and beautiful, and is adding to this very cool event space that we're in. But first, let's go back to the wagon. What inspired you to have a wagon?

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Well, when my my wife and I wanted to do a lavender farm agritourism concept in retirement. Well, I got a little later start having kids. So this retirement dream is a little sped up. So it's about 10 years earlier than expected.

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Because you're yeah, you're not even retired yet. You're not even college.

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No, not with five kids, two in college, one in private school. Oh my goodness. Um, nonetheless, uh and four daughters, they can be kind of expensive. Boys are usually girls are kind of expensive. But we wanted to have a place that people we could stay in when we're up here working because we don't actually live on the farm. And we went to a tiny home show in Phoenix, Arizona, and we looked at a lot of tiny homes, and guess what? They're tiny. And they were like a dollhouse that they are. That's a very good point. I was gonna get to that because they require, well, not every single one of them. You put some on a on a flatbed, but once you put it on the f permanent foundation, your taxes on any particular property go through the roof. So the the wagon being a Conestoga wagon on wheels that were hand-carved by the Amish, I'll throw in there, wow, is considered an RV and has no impact on the tax base for the property.

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That's awesome, which helps.

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Which helps Sig Top.

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So, y'all, what's really cool is the wagon has like this wood base, and the roof is this like white canvas, yeah. That is wrapped around and it is an old school looking wagon, but it's much bigger because it has two bunk beds, like a bunk bed set. What was that a green bed? Yeah, yeah, a full bath, full bath, and then like a little mini kitchenette. And so all of that is in the wagon. So it is an extended wagon. And yeah, it's not there, aren't there not horses here that are pulling it. But other than that, it like if you can just picture, go back to your old school Wild West films, that is what it looks like. We'll show you on socials and all of that. But um, it's super cool. And so I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just wanted to expand on how it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

No, no, no, sure. Yeah, and one of the things is like you were saying earlier, is it's truly glamping because you're out here in the middle of uh uh at the base of the mountains in kind of the desert area, and you're surrounded by 4,000 lavender plants in this big green grassy area with probably 30 to 40 mature cottonwood trees, and you would think this place has an air conditioner, it has a full bathroom, has all these amenities. The only thing it does not have by design, uh, well, two things. One is the internet, and then two, it has a television. Because when people come out here, they want to be able to see the stars at night. Yeah. So there's not a lot of white noise lighting or what have you, as well as people want to kind of get away, disconnect from their their life, the hustle and bustle of the city or wherever they're from or whatever's going on in their life, and they come out here and two relaxed. We do have a nice little fire pit out there that you can have a fire at night, if it's not windy. Yeah, and uh just stroll through the lavender fields, and that's in the kind of the summer months, June, July, from Memorial Day to basically 4th of July. And then, as you can see behind me here, we have some some zinia rows that my daughter painted, as well as sunflowers that we have for the fall. We plant accordingly such that they bloom in the fall when it's a little bit cooler and people can come out and they don't have to beat the heat as much and come out here and pick and spend time in nature and learn about what we're doing here and just relax and and have a good time. I think if stinging at it to do again, it's along will be called Fields of Lavender. If he's smart. If he's smart, yeah. Yeah. Last night we got here, and as I was walking to bring some stuff in well, into the wagon, I look up in the sky and the light pollution is very minimal. Uh we, you know, we were down further south. So I decided to look up and the stars were fantastic here.

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And you know, when we drove yesterday from Waco to Tula Rosa, New Mexico, where we are right now, we went through Roswell, right? So you gotta get like your UFO fixed when you're in Roswell. Well, we had to just keep driving because we had to get to Tula Rosa. Rory got here, and y'all, he looked up and he saw his UFO.

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Yeah, I'm telling you, it was kind of cool. I saw, well, there's planes in the sky, and you know, on occasion you'll see a satellite if you if you're lucky and it's really clear night. I saw a blink in the sky, so I thought, oh, that's nice. I'm just looking up at the stars, and it didn't blink again. And I was like, Well, that's odd. It usually continues blinking. And then several seconds later it blinked again. So I just kept watching, and then suddenly it went like this and there was a streak of light behind it.

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It's a UFO.

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It was so bizarre. Yeah, yeah. Of course, I couldn't, I couldn't identify it. It was unidentified by you, so it wasn't. Exactly. And then I didn't I didn't see it again, and I did see a plane blinking, that was obvious. But this other thing, I was just like, that is so cool. I guess my point is the stars are so beautiful and the night was so clear. And then I wake up in the morning, you already mentioned it, mountains, mature cottonwood trees around us. That's what I didn't see when I drove in in the dark. Oh my gosh. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful for morning tough.

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And uh Daryl, I met Daryl this morning. Daryl is a neighbor who helps out here at the farm. He is super fun guy. And he said that if we were what, like two weeks later, we would the the lavender filled would be just total purple. It's already beautiful. And when I walked through, I took our cat Ellie on a little white walk this morning, and you just walk through and it smells so wonderful. I bet she calm when she walked through the field. Yes, she did. And which for her would mean you'd have to drag her along if she gets any more color. And it's just so wonderful. So coming even just a little bit later when it's all of that is so cool. No, so we have the wagon, right? Full, full amenities. It's super awesome. Again, we'll put the link to it in the show notes so you guys can book it and come and stay. But even if you don't stay, you still need to come visit. Yeah. Because you have a UPIC.

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Correct. This is a destination.

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This is a destination.

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For a number of reasons. Tell us about the whole UPIC

You-Pick Lavender And Agritourism

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thing. And we um we we get a lot of assistance from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

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Yeah, who is supporting this episode. Thank you, along with Foreign Family Farm Science.

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They are a humongous asset to a growing fairly new business concept called agro-tourism. It's where you combine people driving through or looking for something to do for the day, whether they're on vacation or a day trip, with agriculture. So we have the ability to come pick your own lavender in the usually it's from Memorial Day through the 4th of July. And that's Mother Nature dependent, whenever Mother Nature provides optimal growing environment for the lavender to spike and then produce its floral beauty and scent. And uh so people can come out during that. And then also in the fall, like I said, we do the zinnias as well as the sunflowers, and possibly this year we'll do painted corn because we're adjacent to a uh um Indian reservation here. So painted corn, which is really, really, really, really popular during the holidays for decorations. Yeah, you know get that very colored corn. But the point is, is getting people out of their the out of their house, getting kids from behind social media, cell phones, tablets, what have you, and come out here and enjoy nature. There's a lot of nature from bees to owls to hawks to lizards to coyotes at night, to coyotes at night, to uh an occasional skunk on occasion. Uh wasn't me, but it was the skunk. But there's plenty of lavender around to help with the smell. Yeah, absolutely. So we did that, and then another thing is what we do is to provide people an opportunity to come out and have an event, whether it's a wedding, whether it's a baby shower, whether it's a a corporate event, whether it is a uh quincinera or any other event where people want to come out, just get out of the city on some open land and green, green, green surroundings in the middle of the desert, albeit at the base of the mountains. But still, we're in an arid, arid climate, arid desert, and we provide a little green oasis that gives you uh a lot, a lot, a lot of variety in nature, and it's all basically surrounded by lavender.

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Yeah.

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A lot of people we know have made trips to Ruidoso. Is that how you say it? Yeah. But I would say that's only it's less than 30 minutes away. 35 miles away. 35 miles away. If you make a trip to re uh Ruidoso, you gotta make a trip to here. Yeah. I mean, completely unexpected.

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Well, and you're only you're only 35 minutes from White Sands National Park. Yeah, correct. So like halfway between the two. Again, like this is a super great stop. Yeah. And you could do some day trips and things like that. So this is a great, great destination for events, for for a stay in the wagon, because that's so cool. And I just want to jump on too, and and sorry if you said this, but I remember earlier today you told me that you even had baby showers here because they just loved having that green that you were just talking about. Absolutely. I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, we've had probably we've had we've done zero advertising, just it's all word of mouth. Well, people come out here you get for the you pick them. And if someone wants to have a baby shower, oh, you should go to Florence Family Farms. Yeah. So it's it's growing kind of organically. And you know why? Because people love it. People come out here, they're like, I didn't even know this was here, and we just love it, and then the word spreads. But um, there was a a doctor, Ivy League educated physician in Alamogordo, New Mexico, that with her first child was during COVID. So she wasn't allowed to have a baby shower prior as she was pregnant before she had the baby. So when she came out here with her young daughter for numerous U Pick'em events, she wanted to have her baby shower here for her second child. And they had a massive baby shower here, they had a bunch of games, they had to make a shower game. Absolutely. I mean, it was just absolutely fantastic. Community event, basically, yeah. Oh, 100%. And one of the things that brings my wife and I and our family joy is that, and our tagline is Florent Family Farms, we grow memories. Of course, we grow lavender, we grow cut flowers, but at the end of the day, if we can put a smile on somebody's face, we've done our job. And the smiles there were amazing. Last year we did a butterfly release prior to the to the opening. We're gonna have one another in about two more weeks. So fun. Uh, where people come out here and we get these butterflies and then they release them. And uh have some real good friends from the the El Paso area that came up. They were they were older, retired attorneys, and they traveled the world, and they're now into photography. Both of them had these massive cameras with huge lenses, and they said, This is the most they'd seen people smiling, or the most people in any one area with smiles on their face in probably in their entire life. Wow.

Bees Raptors And An Owl Rescue

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When they were up into their late 60s, early 70s. So that that makes us feel good.

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Yeah.

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I love it. They don't only grow lavender out here, they grow families, right? Absolutely. And they grow happiness. And how school is and memories. Yeah, memories and memories. Yeah, I mean, all that stuff. Yeah.

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That butterfly release that sounds so fun. And along those lines of flying critters, Daryl told me y'all have bees.

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We have bees. We how's that coming to be? We we do. We're not we're not beekeepers, yeah. But we teamed up with a local beekeeper, and we have an agreement that we provide the property and then they do all the basically the work to keep the bees happy. Because unbeknownst to me, up until the last couple of years, bees require a fair amount of work to keep them happy and healthy. And if we don't have bees in this world, then our supply and all the sequelary that comes with lack of food supply, a proper food supply, is uh is is not good. It's exacerbating. Yeah. Another thing we have is that we have a fair amount of raptors here, birds of prey.

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Yeah.

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So we have hawks and we have owls. And up on the n kind of the east end of the property, a couple weeks ago it was real windy, and there was two great-horned owls that fell out of the nest. That we my wife Hillary, um, the the I guess it was the mom owl would come and feed it for about a week. One of them perished. But the the one that was still alive, we went and and retrieved it, and we called an animal rescue place in El Paso, Texas, and they told us to keep it dry, don't don't wet it down, as well as feed it raw chicken. Well, from there we that was on a Saturday, and then on a Sunday, we took it to the Animal Rescue League, they took it to the El Paso Zoo. It had a massive infection on its ear, on the side of its head, with maggots in it and the like. They cleaned it up, put it on some antibiotics, then we took it the next weekend to an animal rescue in the mountains of Gila National Forest, and they're rehabbing it, and they're gonna bring it back here and release it on the farm. They're gonna have a big event. One of the things that was super interesting and part of the agritourism with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to get the word out about agritourism and all that New Mexico has to offer is that just one raptor, one owl, one hawk, the ecological impact it has is immense. And I didn't realize that until recently. So we're gonna have a big educational event surrounding the release of we called him Hootie because he was an owl. And I like Hootie and the Blowfish. Yeah, right? In this case it was Chicken Hootie, yeah. Hootie the chicken.

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Maybe they'll do your live music that night.

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Yeah, hey, I would Darius Rucker, come on out. And kids get to see how you whoever's here for the release gets to see up close and personal. Absolutely.

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That is so cool.

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Absolutely.

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I got chills when you talked about that.

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Yeah, it was really, really, really neat. That is a great show. And then my wife being a TV journalist, she's an anchor on the on the local news in El Paso, Texas. She's gonna do a three-part series on Hootie. That's awesome. She's done two of them, and then we just have to wait till the end, obviously, to release them. Oh, that's a great talk. That's interesting. Culminate the the the actual Hootie releasing them back here on the phone. That's awesome. It'll be pretty neat. Pretty neat.

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So fun.

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Yeah.

Live Music Nights On The Farm

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So speaking of hootie, you know, you do have live music here.

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We do.

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So how does that work? How often does that happen, or is that we try and schedule it.

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We have in the last couple, two, three years, scheduling it around our U Pick'em events in the evening. So families come out in the day, families can come out in the evening as well, but it gives them an opportunity to enjoy live music in an open air environment. And the views are absolutely stunning of the mountains as well as the sunset. And we uh we have on the other side of the wagon uh where the obviously it's the east facing, so we get a lot of shade. It's nice and and cool in the evenings here. It's probably about a 30-degree temperature difference between the high of the day and the low in the evening. Yeah, and we bring out a couple food trucks for people to come eat. Uh, we have the barn open for lemonade. Um, it's BYOB. We don't have any alcohol sales here, but you're more than welcome to bring your own alcohol, just partake.

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Um, possibly please, please, please.

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And uh and all. So we have a couple, two, three events planned in the month of June and July, and then we will have more in the fall. It gets a little toasty in the summer, yeah. Yet we will potentially be increasing the the number of live music events that we have here. And how do you get word out about those? Social media. On social media now. But once once the inside of the barn, which is still a work in progress, there's some construction going on as we sit in here, yeah. Once that is is completed, then we will have a lot more events where we serve food. We will have more offerings that are more amenable to the public so they can come out here and it's kind of one-stop shop. Not shop, but we do have a

Farm Shop Finds And Lavender Benefits

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shop.

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Tell us about that shop because those are things that's a way to bring your realm home is to buy something. Either you come and you pick and you bring that home.

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Oh, you take what you learn and experience and bring it home.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

You exactly that as well. And your memories, you take that home. But you can also take physical products home. Um, Rory and I are gonna share a story, a little story about a lavender farm we visited and how we brought what we brought home from that. So we'll tell you that in a minute. But what can people bring home from here when they come to like a UPIC event?

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Good question. Well, we we do have quite a few uh medicinal skincare products. Lavender, in and in itself, is a is well known for its fragrance, it's very floral, but unbeknownst to a lot of people, and what attracted me a number of years ago was its antimicrobial activity.

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Big time, you know, it's you're now speaking to the tea maker part of my heart, so as well as the anti-inflammatory properties.

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Okay, and it also has a lot of properties that repel like deer, mice, scorpions, pretty much, other than humans, humans love for the most part, love the smell of lavender. Yeah, yet a lot of the pests, rodents, deer, they do not like lavender. One of the components of lavender is a uh you've heard of camphor. Camphor is like a vapor rub type of it has a very strong medicinal smell. Well, it's very, you know, noxic, nauseating to all the wild animals and bugs and rodents and everything else. So it it repels those. But that camphor component has a lot of anti-inflammatory properties as well as some of the other linolacetate and some of the other components that make up a lavender oil. And we utilize that in a lot of our skincare products. You don't have to take it for or have a medical reason, but for acne, eczema, pain, sleep, things along those lines. We provide a lot of relief for people, as well as if you just want to have a nice sachet that you that you hang from your put in your car, put in your kind of underwear drawer, bathroom, or whatever. It's very, very, very fragrant. And we also have some of the handmade items that my uh wife and kids. Kids make. We have a lot of artwork that's that's hand painted by my family. For example, again. Uh exactly. As well as they do hand sewn eye pillows as well as hand-sewn heart-shaped sachets. Okay. So if you don't want an organza bag that you see everywhere, if you want a little, it's not necessarily personalized, but yet it's it's a lot more unique. Right.

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Um and more handcrafted and unique to here. Yeah. You know, you're you're not gonna get that somewhere else.

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No, yeah. And then my youngest daughter, she's 13 now, going on about 1819.

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Right.

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But she has a very, very, very popular hand squeezed lemonade that that we make right here. You can have traditional lemonade or you can have lavender, add some lavender simple syrup that one of my other daughters makes. That's one of the benefits of having a lot of kids. Put them to work, baby. Yeah, exactly. I grew up in that world.

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Well, and they all have different ideas. Yeah, oh yeah, trust me, they do have a lot of them.

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Yeah, they let us know.

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Yeah, yeah. Things there inspire them. Um, and you you're giving not only the community a place to have connection, but you're building places for your family to grow and explore their creativity. I just that is super great.

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Yeah, and getting onto the educational peers, I think I gleamed that from what you just said, but we we do distill our own oil and we do during our U pick'ems, and anytime somebody's out here, I give a lot of presentations on the distillation process.

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Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Um, because it's it's it's pretty pretty interesting, and a lot of people aren't familiar with where a lot of these oils come from. I was just thinking last week, it'd be cool to know how they distill oils from things like this. Yeah, absolutely. And I we have a copper steel, and it's probably not the most efficient or the quickest way of doing it, but it is the ancient method of that comes from it's it's an alembic steel that comes from kind of the Mediterranean area where a lot of these essential oils uh originated, and it's the purest, purest, purest form. You could do stainless steel, you can do other versions of extracting oils, but we like to stay as pure and to the roots of where a lot of lavender and everything else comes from. Yeah, eucalyptus and the like. So we do give a lot of educational um kind of talks on oils, distillation process. So there's a lot of chemistry involved in it, as well as you know, um, getting back to the Mexico Department of Agriculture stuff is how to grow lavender. Lav there was at New Mexico State University and NMDA, they did a study on high altitude lavender a number of years ago, and they found out that the quality of the lavender, not only did lavender grow prolifer proliferatively, can't talk prolifically or yeah, that too. Remember the word? Yeah, that word. Yeah, that word. It proliferates, yeah, quite high altitude, but the oil is a lot higher quality than is grown. And this, we're at about 4,600 feet in elevation, and we're right on the border of being able to call it high altitude lavender. I don't call it that. But the point I'm trying to make is that the quality of oil that we produce that's grown right behind us very high is is very high. Very high. You know what strikes me when you're talking about something in the oil that puts off animals and predators and some insects and things like that. It's interesting that for me, the smell of the lavender is so comforting and it draws me, it helps me relax. And so it's interesting as humans that it has that effect on us. Part of the reason might be because, unconsciously, we don't know this, but it repels things that we don't want around at the moment. I mean, good point. That's really interesting. It it helps us, right? It's helpful for humans, and we don't realize it, but we're drawn to it. So I find that really interesting. So I'm talking about the repelling part. Sometimes when we have families come over and we have a little station where you can come and fill your own Ganza bag, your little sachets. So we have this little, this little basin of buds, free buds, and then they fill it up and they ask me a lot about it. And I kind of tease it.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

And then they can take that home with them. They can get roamed up. Exactly.

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So I kind of tease as it relates to like the father or the mother or whatever, is that you know it even repels boyfriends.

SPEAKER_04 26:10

Right. So they gather virtual loads.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

And the girls just my children are bad dad joke, but then they roll their eyes and uh way to go, dad. It's part of being dad. Come on. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Now, talking about the different quality of oils, there's also a lot of different varieties of lavender, and my lavender tea is called Provence, and so I love that one of your varieties in there that you have Provence. Um and I just chose Provence because it's because we've been to Province. It's a popular place, yeah, where lavender grows. But um, not all lavender is necessarily food grade, not all lavender is necessarily great for maybe medicinal purposes or whatever. So there's lots of different varieties. So do you want to tell us about what you grow here and maybe expand on that?

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Yeah. Uh there's last, uh I mean, a very conservative estimate is there's a hundred cultivars, varieties of lavender. And like Lexta said, there is there's a huge difference in lavender. And there's there's the true English lavender, there's Spanish lavender, and then there's the the lavendins, which are a hybrid lavender. And those were designed for oil extraction and high volume yields of oil. Okay. So we grow five different varieties of lavender on the farm currently, and only two and a half of those are culinary varieties. I say half because I'll get into that here in a second. But we grow Provence, like you said there, Provence. It's very popular, and it's known for its sweeter smell, and it's also a culinary variety of lavender that's used in teas and um different extracts, like my daughter sometimes uses that for her simple sugar. We also grow Hidcoat, which is uh How do you spell that? H-I-D-C-O-T-E. Okay, there's Hidcoat and there's Hidcoat giant. And that is uh an English variety of lavender that is also good for culinary purposes. Okay, and then we grow a fairly new variety called phenomenal, and that is truly phenomenal. That's the name of the cultivar. And that's a patented variety. There's a gentleman that um came up with that particular cultivar, and it is it grows in a lot of different climates, and it's it's uber, uber, uber purple, super purple, very fragrant, and it has a little bit more of the camphor than does the Provence and all, but not so much as to whether it doesn't make it appealing for culinary purposes. And then we grow grosso. Grosso is hybrid lavender that is the workhorse oil producer, and it's very high in camphor. So for our medicinal skincare purposes, it is real high in camphor where you get the antibacterial properties, you get more of the anti-inflammatory type properties, repels a lot more of the insects, rodents, uh things on those lines. So that is kind of it in a nutshell. And also, we've planted a new variety about a year ago called Fulgate. Folgate is uh struggling a little bit in this climate, but the plants are a lot smaller. That grows to be about two feet in diameter, a little bush, and we trim it to a round oval shape. All the other varieties that we grow will be, when it's fully grown, about three feet in diameter by three feet tall.

How To Grow Lavender Successfully

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And we trim it back every every fall. So hopefully that helps. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Now, Rory has had trouble growing lavender. Daryl told me when I got the tour this morning that lavender thrives in dry climates. And so that was that's probably been the issue.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

We lived in Nashville. I love lavender. I tried to plant lavender so many times and failure, failure. And I was looking for specific lavenders, and I, of course, you're really limited a lot of times when you go to the stores, uh, the nurseries, even the nurseries on the type lavenders they have. And like, well, what I would ask them, what goes really well in this area? Well, we have this, this, this, yeah, but what grows good? Well, I really don't know. Well, we you know, like the they just work there, right? Even the people who own it. Anyway, so it's been really frustrating. I've never had success. We I tried in California, which should have done way better, but it didn't. So I would love to figure out how to grow lavender and find the lavender, probably for me, black thumb, maybe. That's uh that's more hardy. A lot of tolerate me. Lavender is not easy to grow. But I I went to a uh lavender festival probably six, seven years ago, and the gentleman that owned the farm in Arizona, he gave a little growing uh in-service, a little seminar on growing. And one of the he started the in his talk with most people that that want to grow lavender, like lavender, probably have two to three to four different books at home on how to grow lavender, this, that, and the other. And he says, and now in today's day and age, in the um internet era and now chat GPT and AI and everything, uh, he says, whatever you've bought or learned, erase that from your memory, throw away the books. I'm always being facetious here, but all of that information, just erase it, forget about it. I'm gonna teach you here in the next five minutes. And he did. Come on. And one of the things that he said before I get into the details, all right, I'm gonna is lavender can grow anywhere a weed can grow. Lavender in and in itself is basically a weed because humans like it, but nothing else does. It's just difficult for humans to grow.

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Okay, so sorry to interrupt you real quick here. Sorry, but where you are, the altitude thing in that when we'd go hiking in the mountains, I could swear, okay, sage and lavender. Like, I would find those growing wild. Is it uh I'm talking about semi-arid when we lived in California? I guess because it's a harsh environment where weeds would grow and sage and that would grow in those type environments as well. I don't know. Correct, yeah. Lavender originated like in the Mediterranean area, so it's very limestoney cliffs with a lot of wind. And in those particular areas, it's fairly arid as well. Yeah, okay. But because lavender, for its floral properties, has become super, super popular. People want to grow it anywhere and everywhere. Nashville, Michigan, New York, um, and now Waco. Waco. And it can grow anywhere. You just have to know how to prep the ground. Okay. Okay. That's good. And lavender, um, most people who buy lavender that don't have success growing it from a local nursery, a Walmart, uh, Lowe's, uh, menards, whatever, yeah. They they they kill lavender out of kindness. Like you love lavender so much you want to water it, water it, water it. Lavender needs very, very, very low water uh requirements, has low water requirements, and it's the requirement is just to keep the roots moist, but not soaking in water. They say that you don't want to have its feet, its roots, uh sitting in water for any length of time. So the what the lavender farmer in Arizona taught me is the preparation of the soil is three parts. Super simple. It's a third, a third, a third. And the first third is sand.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Sand. Okay. And a lot of people get sand, you can just get sand anyway. Sand is sand. But if you don't, if you live in an area that doesn't have sand, you can go to those places I just said. Yeah, yeah. Home and buy a bag of sand and buy a bag of playground sand. Yeah. The other third is um formiculite or pearlite. I like pearlite, little white little balls. Yep, and that's to increase drainage, as is the sand. And then the other third is peat moss. Peat moss, and that has a little bit of retain, you know, moisture retaining properties, but it will not hold water. Okay. It'll stay moist and then it'll and then it'll dry. But um, so a third, a third, a third. And then you want to water it daily, keeping it moist for the first week to two weeks, and then you cut that back in half for the next same amount of time, week to two weeks, and then and then just water it as needed. So does it does it do okay if the water is on it, or do you need to water it deep, like with a tomato plant? Well, it's best to water it deep. Lavender, you really don't want to overhead water lavender. Lavender is very susceptible. It's a woody type plant. It comes from the mint family. So mint, rosemary, and lavender are the same family. Sage is from a different family, but overhead watering and it gets a little bit uh kind of woody stalks. Yeah. And as it grows, it will trap moisture and the like. And if it gets any more any, you know, fungus or molds or whatever, it'll kill it, really quickly. That's why in the Mediterranean area where it originated, it's those windy, rocky, limestone-y type cliffs. And you want to have a very basic, basic as in alkaline type of soil, and it's basic too, because that those three components, there's really nothing fancy about it. No, not at all. And uh and then full, full, full sun, at least eight hours a day of sun. Oh, okay. Okay. So hopefully that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Now we know where to put it in our garden.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

I was just thinking where to put it in my yard. Absolutely. So I've never known anybody, maybe there's some out there, I'm sure there is, to be able to grow lavender indoors.

unknown 35:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

It needs that full sun and it needs well-drained soil. And one of the things that the gentleman that taught me how to grow lavender is don't use, hope you're not sponsored by this company, but Miracle Grow. Or any any one of the commercially available potting soils that are real high in nitrogen. Yeah. Lavender does not like nitrogen. So a lot of those, not only do they have a high amount of nitrogen in the soil, but it also has time release nitrogen. That is kind of a selling point. I'm sure a lot of plants need that. Yeah, as you know, immediate release as well as extended release. Well, 100%. Yeah. So um hopefully that helps. That's that's huge, man. Um, and that those three simple ingredients to the soil. I mean, there's nothing you would think if you're gonna get a potting soil. I mean, that's not what you buy at the store. That is huge to know because I do know that when I tried to grow it in Nashville, of course I bought potting soil. The healthiest soil I could get to put the stuff in and killed everything I put in it there was lavender. Well, now I know why. You didn't know. So now you know now I know I had the same thing in LA. If I'd have just stuck it in the dirt in LA, it'd have probably done great. Because it's pretty much what you described. Yeah. I mean, really good soil for it to kill it. Yeah. And the interesting part about lavender and growing lavender is that the the the lavender capital of the United States is in Squim, Washington.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Yes. I have a lavender blueberry tea called Squim. Yes, right next to Squim, Washington, which And that's where I learned about all the different varieties for the food grade and whatever.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

But the Squim is very wet. Well, it is and it isn't. It's it's it's wet as it relates to like the desert southwest. Yeah. But it's a little microclimate right there on that Olympic peninsula that is just optimal for growing lavender.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

You know, it's windy, sure. It's windy and it gets some rain, but not like the coastal areas of well, I can't it is on the coast, pretty close. Yeah. But it's in that that Olympic peninsula area is kind of secluded.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

And we'll put a link to our show notes where you can hear episodes about the Olympic Peninsula and swim.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

There you go. There you go. No, so that's it because people think that you, you know, in in Nashville, in humid areas, places that get a lot of rain, you know, it's counterintuitive about what I said about lavender meeting just to stay damp versus wet. Yeah. And up there it rains a lot more than it is here. But with all those different cultivars that they've they've come up with over the years, you know, they uh they can survive in multiple, a lot of different varieties of weather-related climates. If you just know about the soil. Yeah. Which I do now. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Arizona guy.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

You're welcome. Yeah. Five minutes I learned I killed every lavender plant for years and years and years. And then this guy taught me boom. So there's hope for me. Yeah, because I love lavender. And I like God, I've tried so many times.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

And that's always good.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

That's about as simple as you can get. That's awesome. Love that. Thank you. Thank you. And here on the farm, we give during our you pick-'ems, whether it be the lavender or the sunflowers or what have you, a lot of people have that same question.

SPEAKER_03 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

And and I give I give little seminars on how to grow lavender, and it's helped most people, but once again, people still they take what I tell them, and when they get home, they're like, oh, it's well, we want to baby our plants, right? Yeah. And they kill it. Yes. Kill killing me soft.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

Again, with with the killing me softly.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Sorry, you're trying to talk killing me softly. With your love.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

Oh sorry. Yeah, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

It's not even the right lyrics. What is it? With your what? This song. With your song.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

Yeah, okay. I was killing the song with my love. I even used to perform that song in Opri Land. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

It's an Opri Land for radio. Okay, we talked about Nashville. If y'all go back in the day when Opri Land was a theme park and had vocal groups.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Look, I was the musical director of the theater, so I had different things going on my mother. Yeah, I say it enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Anyway, Daryl, back to Daryl, who gave me the tour earlier that is your neighbor that helps out here who's super fun. All right, focus. Um, he told me that he watered the ground twice, like in a week or something. He said, and that was too much.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

That was too much. And I was like, Roots were wet and not moist and never dry.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So anyway, I just wanted to kind of give y'all some perspective. When Daryl said he watered it twice a week and that was too much. So you just countered in the way that you can really rely on what Tom's telling you.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yeah, because if my plant looks bad, I'm giving it more water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Right? That's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

And if you have a if you have it like either a pot or whatever that collects water and doesn't drain.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah. Oh, another thing about lavender is depending on where you live, if they have a lot of caliche clay type soil, the rule of thumb is to dig a hole like four times the size of the of the plant. Yep. Fill it with water. And then if it takes more than five, six, seven minutes to drain, then it's not well-drained soil. And you need to amend the soil with more rocks, more sand, things one of those lines. So you gotta see if it perks properly, and then that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Wow. We're still on lavender, but I'm just gonna switch gears a little bit.

Lavender Honey Plans And Ordering

SPEAKER_01 41:07

When Daryl gave me the tour and he showed me the bees, he said that y'all are gonna be coming out with the lavender honey.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

I am drooling and I'm waiting for that. So we will send you some. Okay, I'm looking forward to my lavender honey because that sounds so amazing and great. Um, when will that be will that be something that you have to come to a UPIC to get generally? Or will that will you have an online store at some point? Like, how are people gonna be able to find you from here? Because, you know, they might be listening a year down the road or two years down the road.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Let me back up here. Okay. The beekeeper who is gonna harvest the honey and he's gonna jar it up, bottle it for us. Okay, then we will start selling it. And he said that will probably be the fall of 2026.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

2026. Okay. Now it's gonna be limited supply, so it's gonna be first come, first serve, and we already have a waiting list. So the availability of that to order online, just follow us on FlorinfamilyFarms.com. Okay. And if if if it's available, place your order at ASIP because it's gonna go quick. Another thing that we do is we have contracts with some of the local, very popular restaurants in in the area. In Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Almogordo, Masia, where they they purchase our culinary lavender and then they make they infuse honey. It's not lavender, honey made from bees. Yeah, honey's made from bees, but the the flavoring is it's infused, as well as they put it into different appetizers.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

But one of the other areas that I kind of like is they put it into cocktails.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

So it's multi-purpose for a uh kind of a restaurant, uh, culinary purpose.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Right. Um then you've got all your medicinal options as well with the products you're creating there. And then will people find those also by following F. Lauren Family Farms?

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Yes, there will be a link to that because we have a separate company that does the the skincare line. So yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

And we'll keep all of that on the show notes and we'll put your how people can follow you on socials.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Perfect. Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

And I well, y'all, thank you so much. And we want to say a huge thank you to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture for their logo program, Grown with Tradition and Chased the Tradition. And you guys are under both umbrellas with them. So that is really, really fun. And so again, all of that will be in the show notes. So check those out. And Rory and I um, we just want to say thank you so much, Tom.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Tom Florin, Florin Family Farms. Y'all check them out and come visit.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

And I would like to say real quickly, thank you to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, Sabrina, Felicia, Jeff Whitty, Joseph New for the all the assistance that they provide. Not only small farms like us, but larger to help get the word out about New Mexico grown products. Not only the word out there, but they provide education, they provide you know some financial assistance, some cost sharing type of uh opportunities that that that go a long, long, long ways to further, you know, some of the business ventures that we're doing here, but also to educate some of the younger people as well as well as adults. Yeah. I mean, as well as adults. You know, I sure as heck don't know it all. Don't tell my wife that. But and they, if it wasn't for them, I don't think we'd be where we are this quickly. So thank you to my split apartment of agriculture. Yeah,

From Lavender Fields To Sourdough Home

SPEAKER_02 44:40

super cool.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

So, Rory, Tom mentioned Squim, and I created Squim Tea that is blueberry and lavender because when we went to the Olympic Peninsula, we'll put the links to those episodes in the show notes so you can hear about our trip to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington because we definitely recommend that as well. While Rory was home writing, home at the Airbnb, writing his really good book. I went to a lavender farm and their lavender store, and they had all these products, like just everything from seasonings to candles to soaps to clothing, you know, you name it, just everything lavender in this one gift shop. And I got to walk the farm and it was really fun and cute. So that's one lavender farm we've been to besides Florin Farm. But before that, the first lavender farm I think I've ever been to, and maybe you've ever been to, and that we together have ever been to, was the one, two, three farm in Cherry Valley, California.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Yes, it was, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

So this is our From Rome to Home segment, right? And so we got to Rome to Tularosa, New Mexico, and we want to share how we brought our lavender farm experience home.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Because with our trip to One Two Three Farm, our first lavender farm we went to. They had a, of all things, at a lavender farm, they had a sourdough festival.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

This was our introduction to sourdough bread. Of course, we've had sourdough bread before.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Right. We grew up eating it. My first memory of sourdough bread, my dad traveled all the time, and he would sometimes bring us home things from his trips. And he had gone to San Francisco and brought home sourdough bread. And so that was as a kid, that was my first introduction to sourdough bread. I think it's eating it.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

So in 2019, we went to the sourdough festival at a lavender farm, which we thought was really cool. Went with our nieces and nephews, and that was super fun. What I went to the sourdough making workshop. They had lots of workshops. They have workshops in different rooms and different buildings. I went to the sourdough making a workshop. I thought, well, that's really cool. I like to cook, you know. And I was very intrigued by it. And at the end of it, they gave us each our own sourdough starter in a little mason jar.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

And it was sourdough that so was the starter had to come from another starter, right? So it came from theirs. And theirs was organic, was it not? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

The lady teaching it. All of her starter was organic, which was great, because I wanted to keep mine or I wanted mine to be organic, but what a jump start. So in 2019, before it was, you know, the cool kid thing to do. Because everyone was making sources.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Because in 2020, everybody was making sourdough, right? It was the trend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

So I got starter there and I've had I've kept it alive. We were out of town. Well, we were overseas for a number of months, and uh, we were flying from Colorado. And I had my starter with me in Colorado because we were living there while I was working at that church leading uh leading music. And uh I I didn't know what to do with the starter for being gone for two and a half, three months. Right. So I poured it all out and let it dry. So, you know, I spread it out so that it was thin, let it dry. I had to lay it out and leave it like and let it dry while we were gone. So I put it on wax paper, I folded it over and left it in the closet. And so when we came in.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Did you leave it in the closet or the freezer?

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Closet. Okay. Yeah, the closet to dry because it needed to dry out really good. I haven't folded dust won't get on the stuff like that. I left it in the closet to dry. We came back and I broke it all into pieces and put it in a bag and brought it home with me.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

And so that's how you preserved your starter.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

That's how I preserved my starter. I reconstituted it and everything's fine. So I've had my starter since 2019. Uh, I also added a little bit of finish starter, I believe, organic finish starter. So I was in Finland. She gave me some of her starter. One of the our friend's mothers gave me some of her sourdough starter. So I've incorporated some really fun things into it. And it's lived in California, it's lived in Kentucky, it's lived in Mississippi, Colorado. In Colorado, and then it's lived in Waco. So my sourdough starter has lived in all those places. And it's interesting because they say that everywhere you go, it sort of takes on things from there because it's using the air, the water, whatever flour you're using, blah, blah, blah, all this sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah. In some small parts.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Right. So my starter. So you have a world traveling starter. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:15

It's been everywhere, man.

unknown 49:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

So that's that was my uh beginning with sourdough bread at a lavender farm. Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

So fun. And of course, we brought home the fun memories. I, while he was in the sourdough workshop, I went to the make your own salsa workshop. Me and some of my nieces went to the salsa making workshop. And so we got to make a green salsa. We came home with the recipes. We brought the recipes home. Rory, I'm holding your sourdough starter info sheet. I haven't seen that. We have these sheets that we kept from there. But uh, I also, my chicken scratch writing where I took notes, I also have where too bad we can't read it, or you could make it again. Well, there they gave you a recipe, so that's legendary.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

So how come I came in and started making sourdough bread and all this, and then you came home and you're like, yeah, whatever. Yeah salsa. I'm not gonna do anything about that. What is that about?

SPEAKER_01 50:13

From New Mexico.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

You're the one who brought the travel home, but I have the recipe and I know that it's always there and I can access it.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Anyone can have the recipe. Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

And so, but because I have it, I can access it when I want to. But I also learned because it was a sourdough festival, it was more of like a fermented-ish type salsa. But we also learned how to make like sauerkraut a little bit. I think that's what this chicken scratch is over here. And then I have I made other little notes of different things about like tomato tomatillos and cilantro and this, yeah. Maybe that's little notes, and you put it in a jar and you add your own salt. So I was just kind of like adding additional notes so I would get it right.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

I see. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

So you when when one day in the future Yeah, I make my own jar salsay and when you finally make it, then I'll be ready to go because I'll have it from the sourdough festival.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yep. So that was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

And we actually we were hoping they the one, two, three farm, again, this is in Cherry Valley, California. They have their sourdough festival, but then they also have their lavender festival. And we wanted to go that same year and ended up, I think, being out of town as usual.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

What's going on right now, as a matter of fact? They it goes from like this year, June 5th to July 19th. It's it's quite long.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

When they have their their festival. So that's when everything's in bloom. And so, even like when we were at Florin Farms with Tom, there was lavender in the farm, but wait a week or two, and it's gonna be even crazier, full bloom, and all of that. So, you know, everything has their season. And so turn, turn, turn. It was really, really fun to go to that. And so, and what I also loved is Rory brought home the sourdough and continues to make it. I had a fun workshop with my nieces. We all got to experience the whole farm, has a cute little restaurant, and you can buy the sourdough bread. I think we brought several loaves home with us that day.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

And then the idea of also being able to return and do other festivals and things like that that they have. So that was just a really, really fun thing. And that's how we brought our lavender farm home with us. And since this is the L episode, I want to just also share a really fun brand with you called Leaven that I learned about this year. And kind of similar to, you know, Rory had to dry out his sourdough. Leaven makes an instant sourdough and it comes in little packets. And so you don't have to do all of the hassle of taking your sourdough starter with you. You don't have to monitor it and keep feeding it and all of this. This is an instant sourdough. So we'll put links to the in the show notes to Levin so you can check that out because it especially for people like us who travel, like it's amazing to me that Rory's been able to keep our starter because it is something that you have to feed over time.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

Survive.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

And yeah, so you have to keep feeding it. I mean, there's a lot of mates.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

I need to feed ours today. It's been in the fridge for a while. I fed it before our last trip and then forgot. Was laid in bed last night, woke up, thought about the sourdough starter, couldn't go to sleep, so I need to feed it today.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

See, it's kind of like the garden thing. Like it's really hard when you're gone all the time to do things that need mates. Keeping your house clean, doing a garden. So just the fact that Rory has been able to preserve for like seven years his starter is pretty amazing. But if you don't want to travel with your starter and you're you're someone who's on the go like us, but you definitely want to like make some homemade sourdough, this leaven instant sourdough is a great option.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

Yeah, it's a little small pouch, it's only seven grams in the pouch, so very portable.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Yeah, yeah. So take it with you in that form in a little, in a nice little pocket-sized packet. And of course, another way that you can take Florin Farms home with you. They have lots of fun products that you can obviously go visit in first person, like we shared about. Go stay in that wagon because that is amazing. So go stay in that Airbnb and covered wagon. We'll put the links to that because you can book it through Airbnb. So go there, stay there, visit their festival, their pick your own and all of that, and get involved with your local farms. Keep checking out our show notes because we'll keep them updated for you when there are more Florin Family Farms products.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

And you can also go to FlorinFamilyFarms.com, f L O R E N FamilyFarms.com.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Yes. Also, Tom is also working on all of those very cool products that help on the medicinal side just to kind of help relax you and really using the medicinal properties of that lavender. So check that out so you can get all hooked up. And we want to say a huge thank you to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture's grown with tradition and taste the tradition logo programs that are supporting not only this episode, but also very cool farms like the Florence Family Farm. So thank you so much to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. We really appreciate you and helping introduce us to this whole fun field of agritourism. Thank y'all so much for listening to Elle It's for Lavender, and we will see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_02 56:04

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

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SPEAKER_02 56:10

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SPEAKER_00 56:11

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SPEAKER_02 56:14

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SPEAKER_01 56:16

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SPEAKER_02 56:19

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SPEAKER_00 56:30

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SPEAKER_02 56:33

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SPEAKER_00 56:35

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