It’s early fall and deep purple has faded to light lilac–it’s harvest time at Pelindaba Lavender Farm.

Under a cloud-covered sky, workers are in the field with sickles, cutting bunches at mid-stem. The lavender will be dried completely before it’s distilled into lavender oil, which has therapeutic benefits when used in its pure form and as the basis of self-care products sold at the farm store.

“Lavender is a sedative,” said Stephen Robins, owner of Pelindaba. “Put one drop of the essential oil under your nose before bed and you’ll fall asleep almost instantly.”

Essential oil has its name because it’s the essence of the plant. Distillation only happens once a year, when the quality and quantity of oil is at its peak, before the perennial plant is pruned and then goes to sleep for the winter.

As a part of Savor the San Juans, the monthlong celebration of everything food, drink, art and farm, Pelindaba is hosting farm tours and distillation demonstrations, for free, every Saturday in October, beginning at 2 p.m.

A fully integrated estate, growing, harvesting and distilling all its lavender oil on site, Pelindaba employs over 20 people and hosts thousands of visitors per year. The farm cultivates 25,000 lavender plants on 25 acres and distills over 100 gallons of lavender oil each fall.

Essence of flowers extracted

The distillation process is simple and nearly waste free. The cut flowers are placed into a chamber with water. Steam from a nearby boiler vaporizes the lavender essential oil. The mixed steam and essential oil vapor travel through a cooling condenser where the vapor returns to liquid oil. The product then goes into a separator, where the oil rises to the top and drains off into gallon jugs.

The actual distillation is completely passive,” Robins said. “We’ve extracted the oil without touching anything.”

The remaining water, hydrosol, is essentially diluted lavender oil and a product in itself. Pelindaba markets hydrosol, or floral water as it’s often called, as a “green” household cleaner. It’s non-toxic, additive free, and cuts through grease and oil.

Besides a natural oil-solvent and sedative, lavender has a wide variety of practical and therapeutic benefits. It’s an antiseptic, topical anesthetic and has insect repelling properties. Lavender offers an alternative to chemical products and Pelindaba encourages this school of thought through educational workshops and demonstrations involving the practical applications of lavender.

Art of cultivating open space

Robins purchased the original 25 acres in the late 1980s, and decided to preserve the land as an open space, to protect it from further development. But Robins wanted to share this open space with local islanders and visitors, which was the main inspiration for starting a farm.

For Robins, the farm has been a way to contribute to the quality of life on the island and benefit the local economy. Transport services, packaging, artwork, sewn products–whatever cannot be crafted on the farm, is outsourced locally. While some items might be less expensive off island, that’s not part of the Pelindaba principle.

In 2009, everything but the fields and the corner Gatehouse store was lost in a fire at Pelindaba. Insurance covered little, and Robins had to rebuild the property and business at considerable personal expense. But it was worth coming back to, he said, because it benefits the island in so many ways.

Pelindaba translates to, “a place of great gatherings,” in Zulu, an echo of Robins’s South African roots.

“I like to think of the farm as a privately owned public park, where the gates are never locked,” he said. “We encourage people to come and walk, whether there are flowers or not.”