A bare field is silent. It seems to tell no story – only wind, sand, a wide horizon. It was precisely there that our first year in the garden of truffles | RAIN DROPS of JUNE began: with a plot of land that had never known shadows, and with the question of how to slowly bring life back from emptiness.
But before the first sod was turned, there was already a long, invisible phase: planning . We read, compared, discarded, and reorganized. We selected varieties that suited the soil and climate—and what we wanted to create here. We determined the mix of trees , carefully considered their positions, spacing, transitions, and microclimates: where the wind breaks, where the sun shines, and where water is allowed to linger. A garden doesn't just come into being when you plant, but rather in the way you envision it.
Then came the first tree. A moment that was bigger than the hole in the ground. With the first tree, a twilight of the gods began – a silent transition in which the old order of the area faded and a new, rooted world began to emerge. Roots forged connections: to soil life, to fungal networks, to water, to patience. In the winter of 1924/25, more trees and shrubs followed – fruit and berries, the first lines that gave structure to the area. We worked quietly: mulch, companion planting, observation – less "doing," more understanding.
And sometime in the summer of 2025, it came – the June rain . Not dramatic, but just right. A rain that didn't just wash the leaves, but penetrated deep into the soil. Afterwards, the field was never the same: the surface softer, the plants more vibrant, the green less fragile.
The first results were small, almost private: a few fruits on individual trees – nashi pear, apple, Williams pear, sour cherry – plus gooseberries, blueberries, currants, Kamchatka berries , and a few table grapes . Not a harvest in the classic sense, more of a sign: you've found a beginning here.
Winter has returned. The area appears calmer, but not empty. A different kind of silence hangs over the young plants – a quiet one, active and at work. Beneath the mulch, in the root zone, in the soil, which is slowly learning to store moisture. We see less of a "result" than a promise : that what became invisible in the first year will return stronger the next. And that sometimes a single drop in June is enough to set an entire year in motion.
In the next post, we'll take you through the year – with pictures from the first planting moments right through to this winter.
