A Seattle-like summer continues

We had 6 straight days of rain last week. Normal if you are in Seattle, but kind of weird for the desert of Salt Lake... Yesterday we caught a little break in the storminess and it was mostly cloudy all day, sometimes ominously so, but it didn't rain. Yes, that one rainless day I was hoping for actually happened right on cue!! I, and several of my neighbors, took advantage of that little window of opportunity and got the lawns mowed. It looks so good right now. I wish I could just freeze-frame it and have it look exactly like this all summer long.

This morning I got outside early enough to get the planter boxes on the patio planted. I chose sweet potato vine, asparagus fern, big pink petunias, salvia and marigolds. I love the color palatte! The chartreuse against the pink shades and dark greens with specks of blue-ish purple and yellow-orange is gorgeous. Glad the gardeners at Temple Square came up with it so I could copy it.

The garden is sure growing good with all the rain. The potatoes are blooming and some of them are pretty close to hip high. Hopefully there will be some good potatoes underneath this year. These are some I 'forgot' to dig last fall and they were just from some that had sprouted in the fridge and I decided to see if they'd grow rather than throw them away. They did, but not great. Commercial potatoes are treated with something that supposed to keep them from sprouting very much. It worked out so well to leave them in the ground over the winter, I may just do that purposely this fall... pick out the place I want to grow spuds next year and plant them before winter sets in.

The tomatoes are trying hard to catch up those that have been in the ground longer. It's amazing but I swear you can see the difference in their size every night when I come home from work. And the raspberry plants I moved to create a row from the 'clump,' it looks like they've all survived and are coming out of the shock and sprouting new leaves. The clump has lots of berries this year so I've left it in place for now with the plan of taking it out late this fall. The corn and beans are both up and growing fast. Unfortunately so are the weeds!

And yes, the rain started again today. And it's in the forecast for the entire coming week.