Following the Summer Harvest at Deschampsia
Summer is the busiest time of year at Deschampsia.
Because so much of the botanical skincare and hydrosols I make begins with plants that I grow, gather, or source locally in the Pacific Northwest, the season itself starts to dictate my schedule. There are only certain windows for harvesting Douglas fir tips, chamomile, mugwort, fireweed, lavender, and other plants at their best.
I can put off taking a photograph or writing a social media post, but I can't put off harvesting a plant when it's ready.
Early Summer: Gathering and Drying
The season begins with Douglas fir tips gathered from the Cascade foothills, followed by a steady harvest of chamomile and calendula from my own garden on Vashon Island.
Throughout the summer, I deadhead the flowers as they open, then dry and store them for the oil infusions and other products I'll make throughout the rest of the year.
This is an important part of the plant-to-bottle approach at Deschampsia. I don't simply order dried herbs whenever I need them. Growing, gathering, drying, and storing many of the plants myself means summer is partly about making products now—and partly about putting away the ingredients I'll need when the growing season is over.
Following the Plants
By late July and August, my partner Rachel and I traveled to Sequim on the Olympic Peninsula for lavender from The Lavender Connection and gathered wild mugwort growing along the Dungeness River.
One of my favorite plant-nerd moments this year was finding California mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana) and western mugwort (Artemisia ludoviciana) growing alongside one another near the river. I usually encounter them in somewhat different parts of the region, so seeing the two together was a small but memorable surprise.
That lavender and mugwort became this year's batch of Dreamy Mugwort + Lavender Hydrosol.
Soon afterward came fireweed from the Cascade Mountains, along with fresh cucumbers and mint grown by our friend Charlie at Rain Dog Farm in Redmond, Washington. Together, those plants became Cucumber Mint + Fireweed Hydrosol.
The fireweed harvest was especially beautiful this year, although wildfire smoke hung in the air through parts of the summer. I gathered some native seed while I was there too, with hopes of growing fireweed myself and spreading some seed in suitable places.
Distilling Fresh Hydrosols Between Harvests
Meanwhile, the distilling has to happen.
In between gathering plants, tending the garden, drying herbs, making products, and working farmers markets are long days devoted to the still.
Much of the distilling happened outdoors this summer. A full day can stretch to 14 hours between chopping and preparing fresh plant material, packing the still, running the distillation, collecting the hydrosol, emptying everything out, and cleaning up so I can do it all over again.
And while one plant is being distilled, another may be flowering, another drying, and another approaching its harvest window.
It can be chaotic, but that rhythm is also one of the things I value most about the work. Much of what eventually goes into a Deschampsia product has passed through my own hands while the plant was still fresh.
If you're unfamiliar with hydrosols and how they're made, I've written more about the distillation process and what makes a true botanical hydrosol different from a conventional facial toner.
Bottling the Season: Fresh Summer Hydrosols
For me, this work is partly about capturing something that exists for only a short period of time.
Fresh herbs at their peak. The smell released when a collection of plants is chopped before distillation. Baskets of flowers drying for winter. A copper still running outside on a warm summer day.
The plants change and the season passes, but some expression of that peak moment remains in what I make.
This year I distilled double batches of two summer hydrosols because I've often run out before I'm able to make them again.
Cucumber Mint + Fireweed Hydrosol is fresh, cooling, and mellow green. The cucumber and fireweed soften the intensity of the mint and give the distillation a rounded, fresh-plant character that feels especially suited to late summer.
Dreamy Mugwort + Lavender Hydrosol is deeper and sweeter. The wild mugwort brings a rich sweetness to the lavender that makes the two plants feel almost inseparable once they are distilled together. Intoxicating and divinely calming.
Both come from a very particular moment in the year, and once that harvest window closes, I have to wait for the season to come around again.
The Other Side of Summer
Of course, summer can't be entirely about work.
Rachel and I managed to go bike camping on Vashon for the Perseid meteor shower. We were determined to stay awake for it and managed to see exactly one meteor before passing out sometime before midnight.
Our garden has also been producing heavily: tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, luffa, and more greens than we quite know what to do with.
Now the season is starting to shift.
The fields are drying. Fruit is growing heavy. September is approaching with that familiar return of order and routine.
For me, that means storing the last of the herbs for winter, replenishing products that ran out during the busy months, and picking up some of the work that had to be set aside while the plants demanded my attention.
Before moving completely into the next season, though, I like to stop and appreciate what summer made possible.
Some of it is drying on shelves. Some is slowly infusing into oils. And some is already bottled in the apothecary—small pieces of summer saved for the months ahead.
Written by Jonathan Deschamps, founder and herbalist at Deschampsia.