Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Regina Hamlett. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Regina, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
My mom and I had been making our own Lavender Body/Skin care products for a couple of years. In 2020, like so many others, I was laid off from my School Admin job and found myself, as a single mom with 4 daughters, looking at what I really wanted to do in life. My dream had always been to be a farmer and it made sense to use the 5 acres we lived on to do something that helped us live.
We live on 5.5 acres in Pinckney, MI with my parents. We each have our own house and it has been amazing to have my kids growing up with their grandparents around. It’s a dream come true to live in the country in a small town in Michigan. I had grown up in apartments/town homes in many states including Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and California. I had told myself that someday, I would live in a small town, on a farm, with a house that the kids could come home to once they were older and moved out. I feel incredibly blessed that my dreams are coming true, including being a farmer!
So in January of 2020, we ordered 500 Lavender Plants for planting in the fall. Our plan was to spend the summer prepping the field, getting the barn ready, and ourselves organized for the big delivery day! I was going to work for a few more years until the field was fully blooming and we were ready for the public. Well, obviously, the world had other plans and in March, I was sent home for “2 weeks”.
We all know how that 2 weeks turned into forever changed and the world became different overnight. I spent months working online and still prepping for our September delivery. We had scheduled a tractor for July to come plow the field and all of the supplies to be delivered in August. In June, we got an email from the grower: You Lavender plants have been shipped and will arrive in 3 days. We are shutting down our operation and are fulfilling all orders immediately.
Lavender does not like to be in a small container long and it grows fast. We had to be ready in 3 days with a plowed 2 acres, and had zero supplies like weed barrier and soaker hoses. I went into super speed planning/prepping!
I called our 80ish year old neighbor who has a tractor and asked him if he could come plow the field. I called the weed barrier place and asked how fast we could get the materials. I called the soaker hose company and put that on expedite delivery status. I put a post on facebook and told all of my friends, free food for the weekend if you could please come help us plant our field! And then I cooked a ton of food for a few days!
On a very sunny and warm June day in 2020, staying outdoors in the sunshine, 15 of my friends showed up and we planted a lavender field! 500 plants in the ground within 3 days. Sure, the rows weren’t perfectly straight, and we had lost the tags for the plants in the shuffle, so we weren’t sure which varieties ended up where, and there was no weed barrier or hoses to put down, but we had 500 plants in the ground and life was good and we celebrated!! For a minute.
Then, the realization that lavender cannot be watered with a sprinkler (hence the soaker hoses on back order) and needs to be watered twice a day at the root, especially in hot weather, sunk in! How am I going to water 500 baby plants everyday at the root twice a day for 3 months in 90+ degree heat? Enter, 5 gallon buckets and red solo cups plus 4 daughters.
Everyday for 3 months, the girls and I walked out to field with our wagons full of 5 gallon buckets of water and 5 solo cups. We watered each plant at the root in the morning and the evening. Sometimes we played music and danced and had fun. Other times I had to promise to make homemade ice cream and treats to get them out to the field. haha. Suffice to say, we had very dark tans that summer. I have the pictures to prove it!
It wasn’t always fun and it was very difficult on hot days when all I felt like we were doing was farming a field of dirt. I remember crying one time in the field when my shoe sunk in the mud and I was covered up to my knees in dirt and grime. I told myself, it will be worth it someday, I promise.
On a miraculous day in late July, the soaker hoses showed up! I was so excited, as were the kids because it meant the end of their twice a day grueling chore that sucked the life out of them (their words)! I spent 3 days learning as I went, how to cut and connect hoses. Figuring out a watering system when the barn and water source were 120 yards away. Not only was I excited to get the system in place, but I was so thrilled with figuring out something completely new and challenging for me!
The watering system was in place and all I had to do was turn it on twice a day for 20 minutes! Hallelujah!
Then, a week later, the weed barrier showed up. Um, so that should have been put on first, before the soaker hoses. There I was , in the field for another 2 weeks, ripping up a row of hoses, placing weed barrier, cutting holes for the plants, and securing it with stakes. Then re-laying the hoses.
Once it was done, I felt such relief and accomplishment! It was a summer of learning, growing, and living outside of my comfort zone. What a freeing experience it was!
This June our field turns 4 and it is gorgeous! Small in comparison to other lavender farms. We have added more plants every year, but we still have under 1,000 plants. We plan to add another 200 this spring but that feels like nothing compared to what we have already done.
We aren’t concerned about being small. As a matter of fact, the more I talk to other lavender farmers who have thousands of plants, I hear how exhausted they are or how it’s hard to manage, so I am not complaining about our small and beautiful field. I like our origin story and how my mom, dad, kids, and myself were there at the beginning through all of the challenges.
Dad and Mom (papa and grandma) have retired. They live here still but I run the farm and my husband (yes, I got married in 2021 to the most wonderful man) works full time. The kids are older now with only the youngest being the only non adult kid left at home. Our farm vision is Plants, Products, Purpose. We focus on our field, our 45+ handmade products, and educating others on the benefits of lavender. We also have 40 egg laying chickens and have started growing our own veggies, fruits, and herbs.
Now that I am entering year 3 of being married to my amazing husband (my farmhand as I call him) and year 4 of our thriving lavender farm business, I am extremely grateful for what we have been through together as a family. It not only bonded us together, but it’s a sweet story of dreams coming true through hard work, a great attitude, and faith in what can be.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hamlett Lavender Farm grows lavender plants in a field, we make lavender bath, body, and & products, we cook with lavender, and we teach educational classes with make and take projects.
We have a passion for all natural, handmade from scratch products. We use all of our products ourselves. We don’t introduce a new product until we have used it successfully in our home for a few months. All of our products are vegan friendly, with the exception of our healing salve that includes a small amount of bees wax.
Our best selling product is our Lavender Face Oil. It is skin nourishing, fine line/blemish reducing, and skin calming bringing your natural oils into balance and giving you an even refreshing glow! I turned 51 this year and most people think I am in my 30’s. I don’t mind at all that they think I’m so much younger than my husband who is 3 years older than me. :)
I love to cook as a hobby and of course once I found out lavender was an herb, I began to fiddle with it in the kitchen. We now have Lavender baked goods, Lavender spice mixtures, Lavender popcorn (and other flavored popcorns), and a lavender tasting menu that I demo cook as I teach about it.
Our best seller for baked goods is our lavender cookies. I took my grandma Doederlein’s sugar cookie recipe and developed it into our Lavender Cookies. People seem to love them and say they have never tasted cookies like ours.
We do like to take old traditional things and make them into an experience for others to enjoy. We have 3 farm experiences that people can attend here at the farm throughout the year.
1. Mother’s Day Tea: May 11th. Discover the Magic of Lavender at Our Outdoor Mother’s Day Tea Class! Come celebrate Mother’s Day and enjoy a beautiful spring day on the lavender farm with your mom/friends/daughters/grand daughters! Our time together will start with a farm tour, information on lavender, and then a class on tea making. Teas to mix and choose from: Lavender, peach, chamomile, peppermint, Earl Grey, and more! We will then have tea time in real China dishes. Refreshments include, your tea, Lavender Lemonade Mockmosa, cucumber sandwiches, Lavender cookies, and pasta salad. All refreshments are free with your tea making class.
2. Lavender Extravaganza: You-pick season opening! June 22nd. Lavender Demonstrations, Live music, paint by the lavender field, lavender lemonade and lavender cookies, small market with local vendors, our Lavender Shed is open for shopping with our products! Enjoy an enchanting day in the most gorgeous summer month in Michigan!
3. Santa Lights trail: December 1-23. Experience a magical evening with Santa, the Grinch, Buddy the Elf, Mrs. Claus, and a Winter Princess. Stroll along the trail, enjoy Christmas tunes, sip hot cocoa, and toast s’mores by the fire with your companions. Explore the Lavender Shed for shopping, where you’ll have access to our Christmas collections and gift sets! Guests have the option to purchase their own hot cocoa and s’mores kit at the standard rate of $20 for both. Decorating cookies with Mrs. Claus will incur an extra charge of $5 per person. Each participant will have the opportunity to decorate a Christmas cookie with Mrs. Claus and experience a delightful storytelling session with one of her cherished Christmas books by the fire. Our trail is 1/4 mile long and is enjoyed by all ages!
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
I make and sell several popcorn flavors I have developed from my great grandma Shultz’s original caramel corn recipe.
Caramel (all year)
Lavender Lemonade (spring summer)
Pumpkin spice (fall)
Dark Chocolate peppermint (winter)
I recently connected with a commercial popcorn company at a farmers convention. We began talking and literally today, the first shipment of our recipes that they have produced commercially are being delivered!
Our popcorns (along with about 35 other flavors) will be made commercially with our logo on them to be sold at stores, other farms, etc.
To say I’m excited is not even close to how I feel about this!!!
We could have partnered with a different company years ago, but it didn’t fit with what i wanted to do and honor my great gma’s recipe. It was worth the wait to find the right company that would keep our recipe exclusively for us and protect it with dignity.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I tend to be someone who likes to help and encourage others. My husband and I have gotten involved in many community organizations, local government, and state boards. We like to help our community with fulfilling the needs that they express.
Organizations:
Highway M 36 Rotary
PPHH Chamber of Commerce
Dexter Township Board and committees
Huron River Women in Business group
Michigan Agritourism Association Board
Ann Arbor WAVE Bus system Treasuer
Livingston Farmers Market owner/manager
Greenfield Village at Henry Ford Farmers Market
Light up the Park, Pinckney Owner/Committee chair
It wasn’t my intention to gain business from helping the community, but it seems to go hand in hand. I absolutely love seeing people be blessed and poured into.
I believe that every person deserves kindness, respect, & honor. To me, seeing each person treated this way is the best and freest way to live. Because of that, people feel welcomed and valued when they interact with us in any capacity.
I can’t quantify it, but I know that because we treat others like family, people love to do business with us and come back for the relationship.
Contact Info:
- Website: hamlettlavenderfarm.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/hamlettlavenderfarm
- Facebook: facebook.com/hamlettlavenderfarm
- Other: [email protected]
Image Credits
ME. :) Regina Hamlett