While persistent wet weather has the city longing for a string of sunny days, spare a thought for the vegetables struggling to cope in soaking wet soil.
A lot have perished this year in the big wet, but one has been triumphant over yet another La Nina wet season - and that is the humble lettuce.
Known for its love of moisture and hate of stinking hot days, the lettuce has found itself in its prime on the Dennis family farm at East Maitland, although farmer Matthew Dennis said it was almost too wet for them too.
The family planted a trial run of lettuce and included a few different varieties to mix things up - mainly the frilly ones - as well as the iconic iceberg.
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What else do you do when the ground is persistently soaked and there's no guarantee you'll have any pollinators to help you reap a harvest.
"We're still swimming here, it's still pretty wet," Matthew said.
"The crops don't want anymore rain. We keep saying it and they keep getting it.
Mr Dennis said the lettuce had faired better than other crops but there were a few that had struggled to thrive in the conditions.
"Some of them have some rot on them from the rain, and about one in 10 we've had to throw out," he said.
"The rest have done well though."
The Dennis' will sell the lettuces at the Slow Food Earth Market in The Levee in Central Maitland on Thursday, October 20 between 8.30am and 1.30pm, or until sold out.
They will also have a range of other vegetables on offer including some new season zucchinis, sugar snap peas and also some beautiful sunflowers.
Mr Dennis said the city was lucky it didn't receive the rain that fell in central western NSW and in Sydney last week.
"If we had of got that the whole of Maitland would have been underwater again and we would have lost crops," he said.
"Surely we've had our fair share, surely we'll be right now and we won't get another flood this year."
Belinda-Jane Davis
Passionate about community news
Passionate about community news
