Woodstock Lavender Co. Is a family-operated lavender farm located in Somerset, KY, owned by Allison Horseman and her mother, Mary Ann May. The business offers handcrafted and natural lavender products in several forms: culinary, bath and body, and home goods. The farm also hosts a variety of events during their open season, starting on Memorial Day and ending at the end of June.
While the lavender farm was started in 2013, the family has deep roots in the land dating back four generations. During the Great Depression, Allison’s grandfather managed to maintain the family farm by sending money home from his work in Detroit.
Years later in 2012, Allison was given the opportunity to purchase a portion of the family farm, but she knew her path would not be in traditional farming.
“I thought that if I was going to live out here on the land that my grandparents worked on and loved so much, I want to do something with it,” Allison said.
Plants on the farm at Woodstock Lavender Co.
That idea of what that would look like came to her in the form of a Farm Credit cookbook recipe: lavender. The farm started with 50 lavender plants and a lot of trial and error, in order to figure out the best practices for growing lavender in Kentucky.
“I like to describe it as a hobby that got out of control,” Allison said.
Allison mentions that they managed to turn their hobby into a business by working with KCARD. In the beginning, they weren’t sure where to turn. Resources and information can be difficult to navigate, so they started out by following KCARD’s newsletters and posts until she felt they were ready to reach out. While working with KCARD, she was forced to look to the future and concretely think about start-up costs, short and long-term goals, and specific plans for the future. With help from KCARD’s business planning, grant facilitation, and financial planning services, Allison was able to grow from 50 plants to 1000 plants in less than 10 years.
“Now, I tell anyone who is interested in getting into agriculture that they need to start with KCARD because I know we couldn’t have done it without their help,” Allison notes.
Allison and Mary on the farm
They aren’t done growing yet. Woodstock Lavender Co. has recently started Kentucky’s first culinary lavender monthly subscription box: The Purple Spoon. They also offer a quarterly box, the “Farmily” Box, which includes products from their farm and other local producers. These unique offerings have a wide reach, with their Kentucky products being shipped as far as Virginia, North Carolina, and even Hawaii.
“We just want people to know that we try to be authentic with our products and we do it because we love it and want to promote diversity in agriculture,” Allison said.