When Marie Schuhwerck looked at the empty yard surrounding her barn in Farmington, Minnesota, she saw an opportunity. The unused area was prime real estate for “small farm” crops and lavender kept coming up in her research.
There was a problem, however: Typically, lavender is grown in arid conditions and doesn’t do well in humidity. Marie was also told that any lavender she planted was unlikely to survive a Minnesota winter. But this didn’t stop her.
“Isn’t the point of farming to make the land work for you?” she said to her husband, co-owner of what was to become the Lavender Barnyard. So, they decided to give it a shot, planted three local lavender varieties and did what they could to help the plants grow. The lavender not only survived the winter but yielded an impressive first harvest of almost 15,000 stems.
That first success took root in 2021 and since then, Marie and her husband have cultivated their crop into Minnesota’s premier pick-your-own lavender farm, a small business based in tranquility.
Cultivating awareness
If Marie has it her way, the secret to their success won’t stay a secret for long, in fact, she’s eager to help other farmers recreate her results, with the goal of someday seeing a network of lavender farms throughout Minnesota. By offering lavender growing consultations, she’s helping other farmers think differently about the limits of lavender, and by hosting summer internships, she’s introducing college students to the possibilities this and other lavender varieties can bring to the state.
With enough responsibility running her farm, Marie turned to the SciTech Internship Program to help find and hire an intern for the summer. As a free-to-use workforce development resource, SciTech actively sources and pre vets college STEM talent on behalf of small to midsized Minnesota companies, then distributing grant funding from the state to help employers like the Lavender Barnyard offer their interns more competitive pay.
“Agriculture is STEM,” Marie said confidently. “And with so much opportunity here to explore that, we wanted to bring someone in and see what they wanted to do.”
Trying something new
Enter Molly Wilhelmson, a Biomedical Engineering major at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Back home in St. Paul for the summer, Molly applied for a variety of positions on SciTech, but when she came across the Lavender Barnyard opportunity, her interest was piqued.
“I went into the program looking for something with medical devices, so I never thought I’d work on a farm like this,” she recalled. “But, coming from a big city like St. Paul, the farm environment seemed like fun.” So, Molly applied and was hired as a Landscape Engineering Intern.
Experiments in agriculture
“Molly is delightful,” Marie said. “I can give her a list and she’ll do in one hour what would take me a day.”
With the encouragement to think differently and scientifically about her projects, Molly rolled up her sleeves and got to it. Working part-time over four months, she designed strategic landscaping to test new varieties of lavender, researched hydroponic systems and built one for their greenhouse, using it to propagate lavender clippings for the farm.
“We’re experimenting to see what will work best with our lavender,” Molly said, “which means every day is something really different. Hydroponics are an easier and more efficient method and the environmental factors are great. They said lavender couldn’t’ grow in Minnesota, but Marie proved them wrong. So, we want to see if this will work too.”
Something to grow on
When Molly started her internship search, landscape engineering was likely the furthest thing from what she thought she’d be doing this summer. But by embracing something different and giving it a shot, the internship she found proved to be a valuable and surprisingly relevant experience.
“I’ve learned a lot about a good work ethic, and I’ve met a lot of people who come to the farm with backgrounds in therapy, medicine and even medical devices,” Molly said. “Now knowing the healing properties of lavender, I see medicine in a whole new way.”
Get involved!
SciTech’s 2025 program year begins September 1, 2024, with 325 new small business grants available to help support meaningful internships like this.
If you’re a small to mid-sized Minnesota-based company looking to connect with talent and funding for internship opportunities at your company, sign up for SciTech today!