Lettuce Rest, I'm Feeling Beet.

Remember how my "Growing Challenge" plant for the year was mesclun lettuce (or, as I prefer to call it because I'm a substance abuse librarian, "mescaline lettuce," bah ha ha!)? Remember how I was all excited because everybody said lettuce was really easy to grow and did extremely well here in the Pacific Northwest? Remember how I said I'd tried some kind of head lettuce last year and it was bitter and didn't grow very well, but that I was sure I'd figured out what I'd done wrong and that this time, THIS TIME, it was going to be great?

Remember how Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Either I'm crazy, or lettuce actually HATES me. Frankly, I'm pretty sure it's the latter.

Because, LOOK AT MY LETTUCE! It bolted about three weeks ago (which is when I took the above photo), something every gardening web site I've looked at said it would only do if the weather got hot. Well, guess what else happened right about the time my lettuce bolted? The Seattle Times ran a headline that said, "Colder Than Siberia!" And not because it was HOT here, that's for sure!

Since it bolted, the leaves have pretty much stopped growing at all -- in fact, I think they are actually shrinking -- and the only part of the plant that's getting any bigger are the yellow flowers.

You know what? We're done. Me and lettuce. We are OVER. From now on, I'm sticking with the lettuce that comes prewashed in the plastic bags in the grocery store, e.coli and all. This garden ain't big enough for the both of us. Especially when one of us is totally MEAN. And SUCKS. And is a big STUPIDHEAD too. (Note: I'm referring to the lettuce.)

In happier news, my peas are utterly enormous and I'm going to have dozens and dozens of blueberries this year.

In even happier news, today's forecast predicts a high of about 88 or 90 in Seattle on Sunday. Omsk, Siberia, on the other hand, will be a chilly, wet 71. Take THAT, Former Soviet Union!