To get to the lavender fields in Valley Center, you go north of San Diego and eventually take a long, winding dusty road with barbed-wire fences on both sides:
That eventually turns into this:
There are lots of turns, but signs mark the way. The arrows on the signs are kind of small, so play close attention.
Found it.
Keys Creek Lavender Farm is only open to the public in May and June, so get a move on if you live in San Diego County. Definitely worth a visit. They do weddings and high tea.
Here’s the tea house:
There’s also a gift shop. . . .
I took some photos inside with the iPhone:
This little vignette greets you on the way out.
Lavender and palm trees. So California.
A beautiful place to picnic. I love that shade of umbrella, especially against the purple lavender.
There are several varieties at the farm. This looks an awful lot like the Munstead lavender I grew in Virginia.
We had perfect weather the day we were there. It gets really hot in the area during the summer.
The surrounding hillside. Those are orange trees in the midground.
According to the farm’s website, lavender is mentioned in the Bible by the name used then, Spikenard from the Greek name for lavender, naardus, after the Syrian city Naarda. The name lavender is thought to come from the Latin root word “lavare,” which means “to wash.”
Clouds of lavender.
Of course the Adirondack chairs are blue-violet.
The lavender appears to be waving, doesn’t it?
Hope your week’s going well. . . .
{carole}
Pearls & Prose 
Fabulous place. We get a lot of lavender here, but seeing it surrounded by palm trees in a desert landscape is a new one for me. Excellent.
Glad you enjoyed it. I found the incongruity of it all rather appealing.
Gorgeous !
Thanks, Susan!
What a marvellous post. I love lavender. Such a beautiful place.
I like that photo of the chairs a lot as well.
Thanks so much, Caroline. It was a real treat visiting that place.
Oh this makes me miss California. We used to have orange trees next to our high school. Sad to say, we also used to take oranges from the tree. I feel guilty about that now. Wonderful photos.
It would be really hard to resist picking fresh oranges! We used to pick green apples when I was a kid. The tree was in the middle of a big field and no one ever picked them, so we didn’t feel guilty.
In one of my history classes I had to read Saint Augustine’s writings and he confessed to stealing a piece of fruit when he was a child. That made me feel somewhat better. If a saint could even do it, maybe I wasn’t so bad. However, he only took one–but I don’t want to think too much about it 🙂
🙂
Beautiful array of images, Carole. I understand that a sachet of lavender under your pillow helps to bring sleep … true?
I’ve heard that too.
I want chairs that color. Looks just like Provence, except for the palm trees.
It’s now my favorite color for Adirondacks.