Purple Adobe Farm

There is a lavender farm just north of Santa Fe, in Abiquiu. You see the sign for it when you go to visit Ghost Ranch, the place where Georgia O'Keeffe painted and lived. The farm is just a mile away.

I've always wanted to visit and we finally did. It wasn't quite what I expected.

The farm's website has pictures that look like Provence in full bloom -- southern France in vibrant purple glory. The reality in the first week of August in northern New Mexico was  . . . different.

It's a working organic farm. Not a display garden or public park or lush estate. There are no wide expanses of lavender all in bloom. The farm is down a rutted dirt road off the main highway, the parking lot a big dusty field. Jim could not maneuver his walker in the dirt and stayed in the car.

There were three small plots on a flat plain next to the Chama River. Two were planted up, one fallow.

The first plot was short stem English lavender that had finished blooming and was just a square of small buns of foliage.

The second was a rectangle of grosso long stem lavender and although they were blooming in early August, the actual plants were half dead, dried out and sending up just a few stalks of fragrant dark purple lavender. Enough to harvest, and the stems were lovely, but the rows of scraggly plants not so much.

They were being irrigated -- there were lines and snaking hoses and equipment everywhere. The farm has 21 guaranteed acre feet of water from the nearby river, and the sunbaked fields were being watered when I was there. But the plants looked awful.

A worker ran his noisy weed whacker around all the plants, keeping the worst of the weedy stuff at bay. A port-a-potty was the only facility.

However, despite the working farm vibe, there is a very cute rustic gift shop and tea room on site. 

The owner was there and she is lovely. The lavender infused cupcakes were delicious. the gift shop has everything - soaps, culinary lavender, oils, bath salts, and more. It smelled divine in there. I had a cupcake.

For $15 you can get a basket and scissors and go out and pick all the lavender stems you want. A little girl of 6 or so looked so pleased with her harvest.

The owner lives on site in an adorable two bedroom house. There is a pretty perennial garden there and I had more enjoyment seeing that than the uninspired rows of lavender plants out in the sun.

All of these pictures are from the realtor's web site because Purple Adobe Farm is for sale. 

It's described as an event site, with 11 acres, solar energy, tea room, a commercial kitchen, greenhouses and utility buildings, and the cute little house and other outbuildings, peach trees and some grape arbors. They don't mention the port-a-potty. Guaranteed river water for irrigation. Beautiful mountain scenery.

If you have $1.8 million it's yours.