Rain, Rain (go away)...

Today's my day off. It's been raining and cloudy and cool for several days now, and the ground is too wet to plant anything. Really all I can do is pull weeds. That's not necessarily a bad thing--the sand burs are unfortunately alive and well. They don't seem to be as thick as last year, but the fact that they're here at all is disheartening.

I'm hoping to get grass planted this fall. The thing holding us up right now is deciding where there will be flower beds and where the patio will be. We could have made a mad dash and planted some of the yard with grass, but I keep hearing that it's better (less work, easier to establish strong growth) to plant grass in the fall.

My peas are kicking ass. All this rain means that I can go out and almost watch them grow. And I even have pictures now. They're growing here:
That's my favorite one. We'll see how it looks when there are vines growing all over it. I'm betting it will be awesome, though. For now, that's the only picture I'm going to post. The other two spots aren't as neat-looking, and won't be until the vines have really gone to town.

So that's the extent of the outside vegetables right now. I had hoped that the ground would be dry enough to get some of the bigger tomato transplants into the ground, but... yeah. And yes, I realize it's still a little early to have them outside. But I was going to try a package of those "Wall-o-Water" things. A little gimmicky, perhaps, but I've heard good things, and some of those tomatoes are too tall for me to even try putting them under the lights anymore. I just don't want them to die. Not after all the money I've spent on lights and heat mats and soil medium and peat pots... Nevermind the time.

One of the things I don't have to worry about this year is my chocolate mint. Last year I only got to pinch it back twice, and I was afraid it wouldn't live to see this year. This year, though, the patch on the west end of the house is kicking ass. Today I'm making my first batch of candy out of it. In a few weeks I'm going to try the ice cream recipe I have.

But for now, the weather's crappy and cool, and I need to do something productive. Perhaps I'll re-pot some houseplants.

:)