Princeton Lavender Farm: a Delightful Visit with New Furry Friends
You simply cannot finish July without a visit to a lavender farm. Despite our many recent travels, my family managed to fit a visit to Princeton Lavender Farm into this past weekend. About a 10 minute drive from the university town of Princeton, NJ and about 1.5 hours drive from NYC, this family-owned farm hosts a small lavender field and small herd of goats and alpacas. Here’s how our we enjoyed our hour visit:
Welcome
Pulling into the small gravel parking lot, we immediately went into the “farm shop” hut next door. We met the lovely owner, Beth, and her daughter. Beth gave us a quick visual tour of the farm, pointing out the farm’s features from the shop window. The lavender fields are directly down the small hill from the shop and the gated animal pastures were a little further in the distance.
Entry to the farm was $5 per adult. In addition, you could pick your own lavender for $10 or get a large cup of animal feed for the animals for $4. We elected to get the animal feed, as we had already picked our own lavender on Governor’s Island in June.
The shop also sold lavender spray oil, lavender sachets, lavender honey soap, lavender honey, and dried lavender bouquets. We did purchase a soap and a honey to try.
Lavender Field
As it is toward the end of lavender season, this farm’s field was mostly harvested. However, they did have a nice section of lavender in bloom off to the left-hand side. These plants were a bit older—between 4-5 years—and therefore larger and woodier. The plants were taller than my two-year-old! The flowers were definitely at the end of the bloom, with the colors less vibrant. However, the scent was as amazing as you’d expect!
Walking between the rows and nudging blooms out of the way, I found a plethora of busy insects: bees, moths, butterflies, and even a young praying mantis! What is a serene field for us is a vibrant community for others.
Fluffy Friends
As you might have guessed, the highlight of the visit was meeting the animals. Beth had given us a rundown on the animals, from the sometimes-too-smart pony (named Sassy) to the most assertive goats. She also gave us instructions to feed the animals down the fence away from the gate—no need to have them congregate at the gate to make her job more difficult!
A generous large cup of feed in hand, we made our way down to the pastures. The goats were very eager for our attention (or rather the food!). Working as a team, us adults had handfuls of feed to distract the large bully goats so that our toddler could feed the smaller goats. The goats were very careful feeding from our hands—they only used their tongue and lips to grab the food. The alpacas, much more standoffish on our visit, came up twice to feed. The alpacas did use their teeth a little to grab the food, making our care in keeping our hands flat a bit more important.
And Sassy, the pony, was also very eager and would snarf down the food very quickly—and if you weren’t careful she’d grab the entire cup of food too!
We had a great visit to this lavender farm and I’d especially recommend it to families with children. Even though we missed the lavender fields in their full glory, I thought the visit with the animals more than made it worthwhile—and honestly more exciting for the kids! I think picking some lavender in an earlier July visit would add to a visit in the future, but any visit has to include feeding the furry friends in the pastures!
