Rain, Rain GO AWAY!

It's been raining hard for two days. Yes, rain is good. It's an essential element in the growing process. However, this weekend we took a family outing to the newly discovered local Agway, where I could barely contain my excitement over the abundance of vegetables. Earlier in the week, Jill and I finlized our list of veggie candidates for the plot. Making the cut were: tomatoes, peppers (orange or yellow but not green), lettuce, herbs, companion flowers (marigolds or nastursium), cucumbers, and just for kicks we'd try broccoli. As I walked through the Agway offerings I tried to stay focused on selecting just lettuce. This proved somewhat difficult, as my eyes kept wandering toward the perennial section, and away from both the lettuce and my kids, who kept trying to add plastic garden ornaments in the form of squirrels and mice (two animals I'd like to see on the endangered species list) to my cart. The girls, fortunately, lost interest in the offensive ornaments once they found a kid-sized gazebo in which they could romp around. With my children momentarily contained, I honed in on the lettuce choosing arugula, a mesculun mix and some romaine. While I managed to stick to my veggie list, I couldn't restrain myself from adding some perennials to liven up the sparse garden beds around our house. So with my card loaded up with both plants and kids (who thought it would be fun to ride on top), I went to pay, and hopefully find my husband in on the way out. As luck would have it, he happened to be settling up his purchase of organic lawn care products, so we were able to depart en masse.

Eager to plant something other than our heirloom tomato, I was discouraged to awaken the next day to rain -- all day. Then today, rain again -- all day. As my lettuce plants were starting to look a bit water logged, I moved them under the protective overhang of our garage. I am desperately hoping the rain will ebb, and I will be able to get our awaiting lettuces in the dirt tomorrow.