Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

Welcome to Grand Oaks Farm! We are located in Fort Payne, Alabama  in DeKalb County. We are a 24 acre lavender, herb and duck egg farm. We do not use any chemicals on our crops. Instead, we believe in organic practices like companion planting to successfully deter pests and keep the soil healthy. 

We copper distill our essential oil from a copper distillery imported from Portugal allowing us to harvest pure lavender essential oil and bottling it’s byproduct: hydrosol of lavender. The hydrosol of lavender has many uses, but is most commonly bought from our farm for skin care. 

Lavender signals it is waking up by gushing oil. When we smell the oil heavier in the air we write down the date because usually in about six weeks we will see stems. 

Harvesting is done every other year in early June. Some of our lavender fields are used for oil, others for culinary or home use. When harvesting lavender we never cut into the green part of the plant, careful to cut just the stems. Lavender is a hands on plant: planted one-by-one by hand and harvested plant-to-plant by hand. 

The heavy scent of oil in the air when all the stems burst out at once is so strong we have been told one can smell our farm a mile away! 

We offer tours, farm events and welcome weddings in our lavender field chapel debuting in June.

I have authored an endearing children’s series called, “Grand Times at Grand Oaks" which are stories about the critters who live at Grand Oaks Farm. Our books give a glimpse at life on the farm in Northeast Alabama’s DeKalb County.

We love harvesting joy here on the farm and encourage all who visit to "stop and smell the lavender." We look forward to many visitors at Grand Oaks Farm this year.