Windy Acres Lavender Farm: Meet the Vohlands
Published 14 February 2023
Photography by Castle & Crown
It's always inspiring to meet people who are passionate, and Alicia & Craig Vohland are passionate people - contagiously so! With a love for bees, lavender and nature, we took a walk around their farm, Windy Acres, and asked way too many questions.
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOU?
(Alicia) I'm a primary school teacher by trade, with a real love for creating, sewing and upcycling, but on the farm I'm chief Apiarist (Bee-Guru) by day and creator of all the products that we make.
Craig, my husband, is a surveyor, with a background in civil construction, which has been incredibly handy for doing the ground work, shaping the beautifully mounded curved rows we have and planning that side of the business.
We both grew up rurally and love our space and we love sharing it with others.
WHAT IS THE WINDY ACRES STORY?
Believe it or not it actually started when I was 15 on a family road-trip to South Australia. We stopped at the Lavender farms in the Adelaide Hills and I fell in love with the beauty of it, especially when planted on mass.
Fast forward 20 years, and my husband Craig and I had just bought 23 acres from my parents (next door), and we were looking at what to do with it. We wanted to something unique that we could share with our community, and it was just such a great fit (and a dream come true at the same time).
Interestingly, it was actually the bees that came first though. Having always had wild/feral honey bees in the trees surrounding my families property, I have always had a fascination for what they do; I’m continually in awe of their magnificence and their vital role in our ecosystem. I’ve always wanted to have hives of my own, and so I did a lot of research, watched a lot of videos and read books till I was confident to manage our own colony.
We actually toyed with a few ideas, but essentially once the bees came, we created the lavender environment for them. A great benefit of having both bees and lavender...lavender honey!
As far as the name Windy Acres goes? It’s no secret that Westbrook is known for its windy weather more often than not, so the name just created itself.
CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT THE FARM?
It's a real family business, and it's run by us, our kids and our school based trainee Holly; but that means there's lots to do and it's a labor of love. We definitely co-opt in our extended family as well - our parents and siblings, everyone pitches in and helps us whether its planting or running our events. Part of our motivation was always to create something for our family and to teach our children ideals like commitment and looking after nature.
The farm itself has almost has almost 8,000 lavender plants split across 4 varieties, with one variety suitable for eating, and the other three grown for either their oils or for their flowers. The edible lavender we supply to bakeries (if you've eaten pastries in town, you've probably eaten Windy Acres Lavender!), and the oil we produce and sell at our onsite shop, with a whole range of other products that we make. We've also started producing a lavender oil to be used in a range of cocktails in town which is really exciting (and delicious!).
Of course we also have the bees and we're now up to 19 hives after our most recent addition of "Buzzingham Palace". These produce the most amazing lavender infused honey, and we usually harvest around 70kgs a year. We could definitely produce more, but for us the honey is a beautiful byproduct of having the bees; our philosophy has always been that we put the bees first and about sustainable practices and harvesting; so we try to leave more than we harvest.
There's so many things happening at windy acres, tell us little bit about what's on?
So much happening! We actually have two main events that bookmark our lavender flowering season, with the first one actually just around the corner. The season opens in December (this year it's the 11th) with our In Bloom Picnic and Market Day, where the community can come and enjoy our lavender at its best, in a glorious display of purple. There'll be food vendors and local artisans and stalls and it's going to be a really great day!
With the end of the season in April we celebrate with Easter and an Easter Egg Hunt in the lavender on Easter Saturday. This was such a success this year that we actually had thousands of visitors, and hid over 10kgs of Easter eggs for children to find, as well as beautifully painted rocks (for our non-chocolate friends). Really, we just wanted to create an opportunity for families to gather together for a unique experience and enjoy nature.
Something that we are really passionate about is the education programs we run on demand throughout the year. Adults Beginners Beekeeping Workshops and Children’s Pollination and Seed Bomb workshops. It's who we are, it's what we're passionate about and we love to educate people about it. We run these at the farm and by private bookings for school and other groups. We’ve also just signed on to run these programs with some local councils across a number of regional areas too.
We also hold a regular Sunday Sunset Yoga session, which is a beautiful way to ground yourself and connect with the senses, and this year we held a Spring Creatives classes, with local creatives coming to share their passions with watercolour painting, clay making and floristry on offer. This was run in conjunction with the Carnival of Flowers events in September.
Lastly, in January we will actually commence our first Pick Your Own sessions, where people can come and cut their own bunches of lavender to take home, creating an authentic experience for people to really get amongst it and further connect with nature.
As I said, so much happening! But we love it!
WHAT DOES 2023 LOOK LIKE FOR YOU?
This Summer we are already prepping to plant another 20,000 Lavender plants, so come next year we will actually be 4 times the size! Other than that, our focus is on our events and our education programs and hopefully teaching and inspiring people to learn about and love bees as much as we do.
To learn more about Windy Acres and what they do, visit windyacresfarm.com.au or @windyacresfarm_
Windy Acres is open most weekends for visitors and is less than 10 minutes from Toowoomba towards Westbrook
