An Outdoor Medicine Cabinet

Culinary and medicinal herbs at Heartwood Forest Farm

Heartwood Forest Farm is like an outdoor medicine cabinet—you just need to know where and what to look for.

Fortunately for the customers at Heartwood, owner Patti Travioli enjoys informing visitors about what she grows, what health benefits a plant has, and how it can be used. “I focus primarily on culinary and medicinal herbs,” Travioli says. “I grow all kinds of other stuff, because that’s what I love to do.”

For medicinal plants, she grows several types of holy basil, ashwagandha, and valerian to name a few.

“Of course, lavender—no farm would be complete without lavender,” adds Travioli, who grows several varieties, including white, which is the mint family.

Getting into the Herb Game

Travioli started Heartwood Forest Farm 12 years ago after transforming an old, dying Christmas tree field into a lush perennial farm surrounded by hardwoods. The farm includes a greenhouse, several growing plots, and a tiny house with block letters across its gable that read APOTHECARY.

Inside the small, Amish-built structure, a copper still sits on top of a wooden cabinet and tinctures, teas, soaps, and other herb-infused products line the shelves. The building is cooled by an air conditioner powered by solar panels.

Some of Travioli’s traditional culinary herbs include lemon verbena, thyme, winter savory, hyssop, and lovage. She makes teas, herbal extracts, and tinctures from many of her medicinal plants. Travioli has even created a tea—Lilah’s Lullaby—for her granddaughter to help her fall asleep at night. She now offers it for sale at her farm.

However, the Michigan State University graduate says she is a horticulturist, farmer, and herbalist, not a medical provider.

“Somebody asked if what I was doing was legal,” Travioli says. “I am growing these plants that you flavor your meals with. People are curious and want to learn more. A popular herb right now in the herbal medicine world is ashwagandha. It belongs to the same family that peppers and eggplants are in. So, I tell everyone, if you can grow peppers or eggplant, you can grow this plant. But when you’re going to buy it, it’s going to be in a tincture form or a powdered capsule.”

The herbs she grows aren’t hard to find on store shelves—many in the form of supplements—but they are expensive.

“I’ll use echinacea, but it was kind of expensive to buy an extract, and echinacea is a great plant during the cold and flu season,” Travioli says. “So, I just learned how it is made.”

Travioli has been a vendor at the Sara Hardy Downtown Farmers Market in Traverse City and sold her products at restaurants like the Farm Club. She also sells small batches of various crops wholesale to a few customers.

But many orders come from customers in other states. Travioli says an herbalist in New York recently bought all of her milky oats before they were even done growing.

“The population is so small here that even when I was at the market and catering towards the tourists, [there] still wasn’t enough people here for my product,” the farmer says. “It’s not like somebody would buy a bag of chamomile and they would be out of it in a week, like food.”

Dialing it In

The farm (not visible from the road) and roadside stand are located south of Cedar at the base of Leelanau Peninsula off Kasson Road. A large wooden sign lets passersby know that the farm is “environmentally verified” by the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program. The farm was previously organically certified, but the fees became too much, according to the farmer.

“At one point I was doing lettuce and tomatoes because they’re cash crops in the vegetable world,” Travioli says. “There’s not a whole lot of money in herbs, it’s kind of a secondary thing for a lot of farmers. I’ve just kind of pulled back at this point in my life, so I’m doing fewer varieties.”

Last winter, one of the farm’s greenhouses collapsed due to heavy snow, but Travioli has no plans to replace it. Instead the space will be used to grow flowers that she hopes to keep the deer from eating.

In the past, Heartwood Forest Farm has offered apprenticeships that allowed people to farm a small plot and receive some mentoring from Travioli, but most people would only stick around for one season.

“They learn that it’s hard work and don’t make as much money as they think,” she says. “Right now, I am kind of focusing on the roadside stand and the events here at my farm. I am trying to be better at that. I have always said I’m not a very good roadside stand manager, because that takes attention every day too.”

Learn for Yourself

Travioli opens her farm to the public May through September with monthly classes about various agriculture practices from growing to harvesting. She has coined these Open Farm Days, and the next one is Sept. 4-5, 10 am-5pm to learn about herbal formations (aka how to make oils, salves and extracts). The classes are free.

“I didn’t open the farm or do anything on the farm until the pandemic,” she says. “I started creating classes just to provide respite for people to come and connect with plants and nature to do a little activity for a couple hours.”

A July class focused on harvesting and using culinary herbs. As Travioli bundled lavender stems into small bunches, she explained to guests how to make simple syrup with lavender. She then served a drink: simple syrup, sparkling water, and lemon.

“I am a big proponent of self-sufficient herbalism, and making your own herbal products, so that it’s affordable,” she says. “If people want a salve or extract, like a tincture, they can learn how to make those.”

She has mixed feelings about opening her farm up to the public because she enjoys sharing her knowledge about plants with people, but has had issues with “wanderers” coming onto her property at various times unannounced. Still, the good outweighs the bad.

“I do love having people come out,” Travioli says. “I’ve had several customers come out for classes, and they really want to learn.”

Learn more about the farm at heartwoodforestfarm.com.

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