All aboard!
This is the term that best describes these last two months. Life in the countryside is constantly testing us, day after day it always stores some kind of surprise. The only way to cope is to grit our teeth and keep going.
These two months have been extremely intense, as they always are, especially during the summer period.
We worked in the rain and on muddy grounds to complete the planting, at dawn and in the scorching sun to pick the flowers at the right time, until late at night to put them in the hayloft and prepare them for the drying process, covering many kilometres both on foot and on the road, bouncing back and forth from the mountains where we grow Arnica to the plains where we grow Calendula, Chamomile and Peppermint.
And this is not all! Now it's time to “make ourselves comfortable” and calmly remove all the weeds, by hand of course, because that's what organic farming is all about.
The satisfaction given by our hard work
The satisfaction of seeing the baskets fill up with flowers one after the other cannot however be described in words, and this fully repays us of all the efforts and sacrifices made. This year, we can also be totally satisfied with the harvest, especially when we hear the first rumours coming from the rest of Europe.
Problems with the harvesting of the wild plant
For example, in the Vosges, a French mountain range from where the main producers of mountain Arnica products source their raw material, harvesting has been suspended due to a lack of plants.
Although “sustainable harvesting” of the wild plant is carried out, this is clearly not enough, which is why we are so proud of what we do.
The importance of cultivating
Cultivation is the safest way to ensure the preservation of this magnificent plant, as well as the best way to always have the raw material necessary to produce high quality products that do not need “chemical shortcuts”.
Of course, it takes a lot of effort to do this, which is shown by the fact that very few of us are doing it, but we are convinced that we are on the right track, and we like to think big!
