Rain, Rain, Go Away

I know everyone keeps saying "we've really needed this rain", but man, I'm really not feeling like putting up with the dreary wet weather for the next 10 days, or whatever weather.com says it's going to be. Here's what the map looks like right now:

We're between Youngstown and Cleveland in the solid green blotch, whereas mom and dad are up past the upper right corner, getting more green and yellow blotches. And, seriously, the forecast is for rain and thunderstorms for the entire extended forecast. Hopefully weather.com will prove to be wrong once in awhile (as it normally is) and we'll get some nice weather.

On a more positive note, this weather IS good for all the recently started, recently sprouting and recently transplanted growies - assuming they don't rot out! We had a brief lull in the rain this afternoon, so I went out to fetch some rosemary for the pork tenderloin, and some lettuce for a salad. Here's just some of the harvestable area of the back patio (with Tucker on guard duty). I've gotta say I'm hooked on growing different kinds/colors of lettuces for our salads - it really livens things up a lot!

Brett DID point out that the leaves (which are still quite small) had plenty of stem sections - which he's not real fond of. In my (and the lettuces') defense, that's just because I intentionally overplanted them, and they're just reaching up for the sun while being a little crowded. They still taste just the same! Here's a close up of the same pot - I planted two big pots in quarters - with each of the four wedges being a different variety of lettuce. I THOUGHT I was going to have more red showing up in opposite sides of each pot - didn't quite work out that way, but that's ok!

This is the top of the strawberry pot my brother and sister-in-law gave me last year... You'll see a mix of storebought and home-seeded parsley and basil here, and I even see some chives popping up right in the middle (I don't remember if I put those there on purpose?) REALLY looking forward to all the homegrown basil and parsley!

A different variety of lettuce here - all one type of lettuce in this smaller bowl-shaped pot. I don't recall the variety right now. Looks REAL pretty with all the raindrops on it!

Here's three of the five hanging baskets I put together with the help of the neighbor girls this past weekend. They're looking a bit hodge-podgey right now - I can't wait til they fill in! I TRIED to go with a color theme (oranges and yellows, blues and whites, etc) but then I just get carried away and think "well this purple will complement the orange and yellow!" We'll see how they look...

You'll notice all the moss packed in and dangling from the pots. This year I tried loose moss, rather than those tough pre-formed liners that you can barely cut with scissors! Also, hidden in the middle of each basket is a half-sized water bottle, with little pin-pricks all around. Just fill 'er up, and let it slowly seep into the basket - really seems to do a much better job of keeping it moist longer. The fun part is aiming the hose to get water in the bottle! ;-)