Community and Health Through Homegrown Herbs

Story and photos by Michelle Kunjappu

There’s often a link to childhood — the smell of something baking, the sight of an antique rocking chair, or the sound of a screen door banging — that connects you to your past. For Katelyn Melvin, owner and operator of Tooth of the Lion Farm, that “something” is chamomile.

Katelyn, whose 14 acre farm rests in the picturesque hills of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, grows 30 herbs on about six acres total, but her personal favorite is chamomile. Since her grandmother grew chamomile, “that’s kind of my favorite crop and our specialty,” says Katelyn. In fact, that’s one of the things that Katelyn likes so much about the little flower — it’s familiar. The reason for her connection and love for herbs isn’t hard to pinpoint. Her mother, Renee, had a big garden at their home in suburban Philadelphia, and her grandparents, who lived down the road from them, also had a large garden. Her grandfather bred his own tomato varieties and her grandmother grew chamomile. “Little seeds, so to speak, were planted when I was younger.”

She began growing plants in her own herb garden in high school and after a stint at college studying anthropology, Katelyn ended up returning home to start farming, “just to see what it was like,” she adds. “I started farming because I liked working closer with the land and always enjoyed the work.”

She began studying plants as medicine through Goddard College, “and that was how I started the Tooth of the Lion business,” she says, adding that the name is a reference to dandelions, derived from the French “dent de lion,” a nod to the toothed edges of their leaves.

To begin sharing on a larger scale, Katelyn eventually decided to go ahead and purchase land of her own. So in 2016 she did just that, meeting with a Farm Credit loan officer who gave her advice on her business plan and helped walk her through an equipment loan for a tractor and a small line of credit. Two years later, she took out her second equipment loan and extended the line of credit as the business grew and she invested in processing and marketing.

Next in her sights was purchasing the Orwigsburg property, and by 2017 Katelyn put in her first full growing season. She’s joined by two full-time farm employees, a part-time employee, and Ben Wissinger, her co-manager at the farm.

The staff she’s worked with at Farm Credit “seem to know about small farm businesses,” she says. “I definitely appreciated that they were willing to work with me and understood a small business, and they’ll come out to the farm. Also, they get to know the property because it is hard to imagine, really, what we do until you see it,” Katelyn adds.

“Katelyn has worked to develop her business based on her end-users’ needs and wants,” shares Kelsey Feeg, Katelyn’s loan officer. “She has carefully crafted specialty products to meet customers’ demands and markets her products in a careful, specific way which has helped with her success.”

Kelsey adds, “She also works to educate others about the work that goes into farming and her business, and is an advocate for other small farming operations. Working with Katelyn is enjoyable and inspiring — her business is truly one of a kind!”

Much of the chamomile consumed in the United States is imported, and one of Katelyn’s dreams is to be able to scale up her chamomile production, introducing Americans to much fresher (chamomile may be months old before it ever hits grocery store shelves), stronger chamomile.

Harvesting the chamomile crop starts in late May and runs until late June, when they harvest it once a week with hand-held rakes. “It takes one hour to harvest one dried pound of chamomile, so we have to price it accordingly,” she shares. “We harvest it by hand to keep all the flowers intact, and dry them at low temperatures to retain all the essential oils.”

“I just really appreciate that herbs grow so well and that we can share that with people at the farmers’ market,” she says. “People will see our chamomile, and just get so excited to see wholeflower chamomile. We do sampling and people will say, ‘I feel like I’m in my grandma’s kitchen.’” While advertising agencies tout, “not your grandmother’s product,” for instance, Katelyn feels the opposite. “I’d be honored if this was your grandma’s tea, I think that’s a very special part about herbs,” she adds.

Two years ago, they built a grain bin that they now use as their dryer — an improvement over the loft of the barn, which required going up a ladder and took a week or two until the herbs dried satisfactorily. The grain bin dries the herbs, since its low heat and consistent circulation, aided by occasionally pitchforking the drying plants, can achieve a dried product in 36 hours. “A lot of the growing and processing we have to figure out, because there’s not a lot of herbs grown on this scale,” she says.

Katelyn’s homegrown herbs, in the form of tonics, teas, extracts, and tinctures, make their way each weekend to farmers markets in Philadelphia, Allentown, and Emmaus, plus the farm’s online presence and several local stores.

About 20 percent of the herbs that aren’t being dried end up being steeped for two weeks in alcohol, water, and a little bit of apple cider vinegar as part of her extracts, which are pressed out with a custom press to become an herbal tincture, an alcohol-based herbal extract.

“We extract each plant as a tincture, then we have a couple different elixir blends, which is a tincture with honey added to help the medicine go down,” explains Katelyn. The elixirs, made with elderflower, fresh ginger, or rosemary for example, are packaged into dropper bottles and are usually consumed a quarter teaspoon at a time.

“I think that herbs really shine in the daily nourishment, food-as-medicine way, using them every day over the long term. That’s why the teas and the tonics are kind of our main way that we like to share herbs,” she adds.

For a different customer base, Katelyn created a line of herbal tonics without alcohol, but based with apple cider vinegar extracts — an easier way of getting herbal benefits if you’re not into making tea — and have names such as Cloudy Day Tonic, which is chamomile and milky oats, or Ginger Tumeric Tonic, which can be taken as a straight shot or added to tonic water.

The operation is part growing and harvesting, part processing, and part marketing, much like so many other agricultural operations. Although being in the field working is her sweet spot, “I only spend half my time farming because I have to spend half my time on the business,” she says. “Growing is the fun part for me, but then I have to find a market for them.”

To learn more about Tooth of the Lion Farm, visit them on the web at www.toothofthelion.com or on Instagram: @toothofthelion