Bulk Herbs

The herb gardens at Awaken are hand-tended throughout their life here on the farm – from lovingly stratifying, scarifying, and sowing seed; tending seedlings in the greenhouse; transplanting into healthy garden beds; tending throughout the season; and harvesting at peak potency. All work done on the farm is done by hand, from dropping each seed into their trays, to prepping garden beds, to harvesting crops, to sorting and drying, to garbling herbs over screens.

Building healthy soil and beneficial habitat underpins much of what we do. Kris studies principles and practices of Biodynamic agriculture, Indigenous ag, and other ecological ag methods and incorporates practices over time. Crop rotation, compost teas, seeding/planting/harvesting by the Biodynamic calendar, adding local wool pellets to the soil are some of the ways we work to grow healthy soil, healthy herbs, and a healthy community.

Right down to the last steps. After harvest, herbs are brought to a large sorting screen; they are sorted and then transferred to drying trays and racked in our drying room. We monitor the herbs, using organoleptic, ensuring they are fully dried, yet retain as much potency, colour, and aromatics as possible. Dried herbs are then hand garbled on screens, removing stems. We do not use cut and sift processing, where stems are cut and included in the final dried herb offering.