Rain, Rain, Went Away

Well, it hasn't rained here in a while now. Except for a sprinkle yesterday at least. Barely enough to get the grass wet. Didn't even show up in the rain gauge. It's supposed to rain this weekend. Of course. What's a holiday weekend without a thunderstorm? I just checked the forecast on Wunderground & there isn't supposed to be any rain Saturday or Sunday & only a 50% chance of rain on Monday. Right when everybody's going to want to be out barbecuing. Keith was talking about cooking something Monday. He can barbecue even in the rain because he has the pit up on the front porch (probably not the smartest place for a barbecue pit, but that's just how we roll) but who wants a huge crowd over when it's raining?

On the bright side, the lack of recent rain let the garden dry out. We've got it pretty much beat into submission now. Since we couldn't afford a couple dump-truck loads of topsoil to raise the garden Keith & I whipped out our shovels & turned the pathways into trenches. Some of the dirt we dug up we added to the bed at the end of the garden where it was the lowest. We didn't have to worry about burying anything because none of the Roma tomatoes I planted there could swim. I ended up planting rosemary, strawberries & Cayenne peppers there.

The rest of the dirt we added to the asparagus bed Keith fixed up. I admit, I'm kind of anal about my garden. I like everything lined up in military precision. At least in theory. A lot of the time (Okay, most of the time) my garden just vaguely resembles what I put on the graph paper. The asparagus bed was looking pretty good I thought. Raised up about 6 inches. Nice & square. All the plants spaced out just so.

Then Keith decided he needed to put landscape bricks around the edges to make it look nice. Personally, I was just going to prop scrap pieces of lumber up along the edge of the bed to hold the dirt in place, but I have to admit that would have looked kind of ghetto & the asparagus bed IS in the front yard so landscape bricks it was. He laid the bricks out around the bed to see how it was going to work & I thought it looked fine, but he got out there on his hands & knees with a level making everything just right. Way too high society for Foley.

The garden looks good but a lot of the plants I slaved over died. Keith bought some tomato plants at the grocery store to replace the ones that got nibbled & then about half of the second string drowned. He said he was going to buy another whole flat of tomato plants but not that many of them died. We have about 30, counting a couple that look like they need life support, so I think we have room for about another dozen or so. Unfortunately, all this planting, replanting, & transplanting ruined my gardening master plan. I know what some of the tomato plants are, but some are going to be a big surprise. Cherry tomato? Big red tomato? Little red tomato? Maybe a yellow tomato? Who knows.

I don't think even the Shadow knows.