Gone for a week and a half. How did things go?

Progress

How things are currently looking in the main zones:

Happenings

Irrigation woes

Being away for a week and a half of very hot weather revealed that part of my watering system was not sufficient. My cucumber plants and slicer tomato plant looked incredibly sad when I got home and I’m trying to nurse them back to health.

I’m also deploying some sun shades for both while they regain their strength. Cucumbers are recovering pretty well. Tomato was doing well then took another turn for the worse. We might lose her for good.

Wildlife (entomology)

Cat face spiders

A very special shoutout to my crew of cat face spiders that have moved in this year and build (and rebuild) incredible webs. I accidentally broke one of their webs because they are quite small and hard to see sometimes and I apologized out loud.

Some of their work:

Other friends and foes

Harvest

Lots of tomatoes and peppers were waiting for me when I got home. I’m trying a new theory of picking tomatoes when they’ve started blushing but aren’t fully ripe yet. The theory is they have everything they need to finish ripening, and removing them from the plant leaves more energy for new fruit. Not sure if there is a downside but it certainly helps me feel good being able to pick one or two every day. The joys of casual gardening!