Pic of the Day last week focused on our garden in Exeter because that is where we are at the moment. Pensri loves gardening and when we first came to Exeter 34 years ago it was from Laos where we had spent the previous two years. Those two years were the ones in which the present communist government came to power. The last few months of our time there were very difficult, not because of the new Lao government but because the Thai government closed the border and the US aid dollars which had sustained Laos for years were suddenly cut off. One of the results was that vegetables became scarce because most of them had previously been brought across the river from Thailand. So just about everyone in Vientiane started growing their own, and Pensri started providing home-grown produce for our little family of four.
When we got our own house in Exeter afer being here a year, she continued the habit, and for years our garden produced beans, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, potatoes as well as strawberries, raspberries, apples and plums... not all at the same time, because Pensri tended to have different fads in different years. But as time went on her attention turned more and more to flowers. For some time now the only foodstuff produced in our garden here has been cherries (most of which the birds take), some loganberries that have more or less reverted to a wild state, and some very persistent rhubarb that takes care of itself.
We don't really miss the vegetables and soft fruit, they required a lot of work. On the other hand, we do really look forward to getting back here in the spring and finding the garden so colourful. These pictures I posted on my Pic of the Day last week were all taken in the last couple of weeks. If you didn't see them last week, I hope you enjoy them now. Click on an image to enlarge it. Use the Pic of the Day tab at the top of this page to see this week's very different offerings.
Hello,
I read your articles with great interest.Earlier this year I was staying with friends close to Phana and hopefully will be visiting them again in the near future.What is the weather like in Phana at this time of year,
Regards,
Tony
Posted by: Tony Groom | 20 May 2010 at 12:27 PM