A Garden Tour and Spring Rain

What with today in town and last Sunday, we've been off the farm quite a bit. This Sunday we spent the day on a Garden Tour around the Motueka area, a chance to be inspired (or disheartened) by the extraordinary efforts of other gardeners. I took lots of photos, but instead of boring everyone with them here, they're on my new Flickr account if you would like to check them out (I tried to pick the best ones, but even with my mother's fancy camera I'm just not that great at taking photos - my apologies!).
There are some truly lovely gardens out there, featuring succulents, water features, and gorgeous flowers. The ones that I admired most, though, had to be the ones that incorporate vegetables tastefully into their layouts. While I understand the love of flowers, I can't seem to wrap my head around a garden that doesn't supply food.
Still, many of the gardens had beautiful structure and were impeccably maintained; not quite how I would describe our own garden. In order to not get too disheartened, I had to remind myself that many of the gardens featured on the tour have advantages over our own. For one thing, none of them were situated in the middle of what is essentially a paddock, with invasive weeds just waiting to creep in from all sides. Also, we've done some fantastic work weeding. In the week and a half that I have been around we've cleared just about most of the major beds, and have started in on the edges of the garden, including the sea of strawberries that are pouring in from the Eastern side. Strawberries are so hard to grow in Texas that I assumed they were hard to grow anywhere; on the contrary, on the farm they are quickly expanding to the point where we might have to cut them back! What luxury. But to help prove my previous point, two pictures a week apart for comparison:

I think that counts as progress!


Today was a very, very rainy day. We went to Motueka ('into town') for some errands and lunch, and by the time we got back it had really started, going steadily from the early afternoon until night. Its not like Texas rain, which pours down thunderously then quickly stops; instead its more of an insistent presence, lightening then thickening again but extremely constant. So constant, in fact, that it turned our driveway into a little stream and puddles formed in every available concave surface. The sounds outside were lovely, the steady syncopated rhythm of the rain punctuated by occasional birdsong. Altogether, it was a pleasant afternoon to stay inside, and take a break from garden work to do some interior decoration and a spot of music. So that is what I did. As night fell mist formed in the valleys around us, combining with the smoke from hearthfires to slowly envelope the surrounding landscape, leaving us on what felt like our own green island, the other hills only vague shapes in the distance. Sometimes its really nice to live out in the country. Like the morning that I captured this sunrise.