Where the Plants Begin: Notes from Our Cornish, New Hampshire Farm

From spring’s first buzzing to autumn’s final bloom, the land in Cornish, New Hampshire, hums with life. This is where many of our most beloved ingredients are born—nourished by rich soil, careful hands, and the quiet intelligence of the wild.

Our farm is a pollinator’s paradise—an unruly, intentional tangle of native plants, food crops, and medicinal herbs that sing all season long. Bees, moths, beetles, and butterflies dance through the air from April to October. We don’t just grow here—we listen, protect, and partner with the land.

What We Grow (and Why It Matters)

We plant for nourishment, medicine, biodiversity, and beauty. Some of our crops support the body, others support the skin, and many do both.

You’ll find:

• Medicinal herbs like clary sage, calendula, nettle, spilanthes, mullein, rue, tulsi, and goldenrod

• Aromatic allies like peppermint, lemon balm, German and pineapple chamomile, dill, fennel, pennyroyal, and wild bergamot

• Culinary companions like sweet basil, thyme, rosemary, lavender, garlic, red mustard greens, and daikon

• Wild foods like mulberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild plums, and strawberries

• Seasonal vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes, corn, peppers, carrots, and radishes

• Ritual plants like roses, sage, and goji berry

• And once a year, a moment of pure floral ecstasy—when the peonies bloom, and I bury my face in their impossible beauty.

We've also established a small agroforestry zone, planting native fruit and nut trees among the woodland’s edge—where they can thrive in relationship with the wild.

Our Pollinators

We grow with pollinators in mind—planting native species to create a haven of nectar, color, and pollen diversity. From milkweed to mountain mint, this land is designed to feed insects just as much as it feeds us. It’s a noisy, joyful place from the moment the snow melts.

The Work of the Season

Right now, we’re in the thick of it—weeding, feeding, tending the soil. Then comes the abundance:

• Harvesting, drying, and distilling herbs into hydrosols and oil infusions

• Fermenting and pickling seasonal foods

• Alchemizing the raw plant material into body care, food, and ritual medicine

It’s the kind of life that stains your hands with calendula and fills your lungs with lavender. I wish I could do it full time.

Sharing Land, Holding Boundaries

Last year, the deer and groundhogs reminded us how abundant and delicious our crops are—to everyone. They ate everything, even our sage. We’ve since built a protective fence around our most precious beds, creating space for the plants to thrive while still allowing the rest of the land to remain wild and unfenced.

From Cornish to White River Junction

While the farm lives in Cornish, New Hampshire, PlantLust’s working lab is in the heart of White River Junction, Vermont. That’s where the drying, infusing, formulating, bottling, blending, and shipping happens. But the plants? Their story begins here—where the bees buzz, the peonies bloom, and the basil grows under the watchful eye of the forest.

Thank you for supporting small-batch, land-based beauty. Every bottle of oil, mist, or cream contains this place—its rhythm, its medicine, and its joy.