I made it back from a cruise, what's the damage? 8/26/2023

Of course, the week I will be in the middle of the ocean, the Southeast experiences one of the hottest weeks of the decade (so far). 95+ degrees Fahrenheit. No rain. So I spent a fair amount of time just being nervous about the survival of my garden. I placed a layer of mulch in the pots in hopes that it would help retain the water in the baking sun... so when I got back I ran off to the garden, despite just having spent 7 hours in the car.

The first thing I saw was two of the tomatoes severely wilted. I ran from the car into the garden, struggling with and cursing at the chain on the fence.

They look pretty sad, as you can see, but not ENTIRELY dead yet. There's some baby lil tomatoes that look okay. The sweet 100 cherry looks way worse for wear and I have the least hope for it. Interestingly, all my store-bought tomato plants seem less hardy, so I guess I made good choices with my varieties I started from seed. The purple cherokee hasn't successfully started any baby tomates due to catching some black spot fungus I've been treating. All the others are ones I started and they all have tomatoes! Here's hoping that a deep water saved the tomatoes. They're much more important than the rest of the casualties- an eggplant and the habenero that's been giving me grief this whole summer. They were both in a planter together in which evidently I didn't put enough water into the resevoir.

Otherwise, I'm really proud of how well things held up! Like, look at this potted flower thing that typically needs to be watered often AND hadn't had any flowers for a while:

Like, is it in GREAT condition? No. But that lil guy actually has flowers and green. It did not outright die like I thought it might. The rest of the flowers, planted in beds, look great. Especially the French dwarf marigolds! Look!

A bunch of wildflowers are growing in behind them, likely daisies and cosmos. And, I noticed, some volunteer nasturtium right in my favorite clump of wood sorrel:

Lastly, let's look at the baby black Krim tomatoes growing in, my first harvested Carolina Reaper, and how healthy the basil and cumumber looks.