Good Morning, everyone. What a wild evening and night we had yesterday. Two pulses of storms with heavy rain, small hail, and winds ranging from 70 to 100 mph. During the first one I had to go out and rescue the Mother's Day tomato. The wind blew it over. Luckily it was not damaged. Didn't even lose any of the tomatoes already forming. It did have a tomato cage around it and, though I am happy the grower provided the cage, it is really too small to provide enough support for a plant as big as this one. I can't take the cage off without damaging the plant. I found one of my long dowel rods and stuck it in to help support it and it is now stable again. I had to move a trellis that wasn't in use to support my Big Bertha Peppers.

They were flattened but not broken. Hopefully, they will straighten up. Oddly, they were the most protected of the plants.

Everything else in my jungle is doing quite well. The pictures were taken yesterday before the storm but the view now isn't much different. You can see why I had some uneasy moments with the wind. All my tomatoes, except Mother's Day, are in the five gallon buckets or large Tidy Cat buckets. For of them are stacked on the edges of adjacent 30 gallon tubs. I hoped they would be stable since the weight is largely in the buckets themselves. Thankfully they were.

Then, of course (me being me) I complicated things by hanging the small containers on the trellises supported by the cross beams. Luckily, all of these have also been stable, even with the winds yesterday. I put dwarf marigolds and portulaca in most of those with a couple each of lettuce and spinach. Most are doing very well in these containers. I cut all of them from plastic juice containers.

I am amazed at the contrast between the plants this year and those last year.

I planted Fairy Tales eggplant last year that simply did not thrive. This year they are taking over and competing vigorously with my peppers. Twice as large as any plants I had last year.

If nothing worse happens than last nights wind and storms I am looking forward to a very nice harvest.