Sunday Afternoon at the Lavender Farm!!

Sunday afternoon we took a trip to Hitchin Lavender farm. My friend Sue had been there a few weeks earlier and took some beautiful shots. I wasn't able to visit until this past weekend. The hillside was full of fragrant lavender, it was breezy and the air was heavy with the scent of thousands of plants.I had plans to take some dreamy shots of the girls wandering up the rows, stunning colours and sky complete with white fluffy clouds. What I hadn't bargained for were the thousands of honey bees feeding on the plants. I found that as soon as you went to pick the flowers they went away. Beth was not convinced, she hates bees having been stung at least a dozen times before, so she refused to walk up the rows, she firmly stuck to the ends of the rows which meant no pretty pictures starring her!

The lavender had to be the star of the show !!

Alongside there was a field of Sunflowers, most of these had turned to seed but there were still quite a few of them hidden deep in the rows, we managed to pick a bunch though!

Late on in the afternoon the farmer came out and started to harvest a couple of rows of Lavender, he had a clever device which lopped the top off of the plant and dumped it into a trailer behind the tractor. The aroma down wind of the harvest was over powering!!

I finally managed to get a photo of Beth where she was not trying to dodge the bees!!

The best part of the afternoon was that there was no charge, we picked a couple of carrier bags full of lavender and a bunch of sunflowers. Previously there had been a charge for the visit but as the harvest was underway they waived the charges!!! Result!

I have been repreminded by my first born, Laura for failing to mention that she was there and actively picking Lavender, in fact I forgot to say that my foot was playing up again and because of that I wasn't able to walk too far up the rows. Laura stepped into the breach and picked me a bag of lavender. So Thank You Laura I am sorry that I missed you off, I won't do it again!!!!