We had a great weekend away, but upon coming back we were faced with a very sad looking garden. The terrible heat wave that hit Long Island at the end of last week had no mercy on our garden, and even some heat tolerant plants looked sad and listless. The worst looking plants were of course the lettuce, which appeared as if someone had boiled them, and the radishes which had folded over and drooped over the sides of the tiered bed. Sunday afternoon, I spent a few hours watering, pruning  and trying to prop up all the fallen plants. All the photos in this blog were taken between yesterday and today. In retrospect, I wish I had taken some photographs to record how bad the situation was when we came home, but my mind was on trying to save what was there.

This morning, the garden’s condition changed from critical to stable, but under close supervision.  The lettuce is once again up, there is new growth towards the top and it is  looking bright and healthy. The radishes seem to have managed well also, and the celery stalks feel firm in spite of the brown edges on their leaves. We lost a few cucumbers on the vine, that withered in the intense heat, and since our bees do not seem to know how to pollinate zucchini, I can see some flowers failed to produce fruit. In the intense heat, however, the peppers, eggplants, tomatoes,  acorn squash, and  basil seem to have gotten stronger.

Since we do like to travel in the summers, the goal for next year will be to improve the reach of my sprinklers to cover the garden area, any suggestions are welcomed. As an immediate solution this year I will try to improve the ground cover with extra straw to help keep the ground from baking in the sun if we happen to go away during a couple of very hot days. As I write this post, I can hear loud thunder outside, and the forecast calls for rains the next couple of days.

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• Heat Wave (quarteracrefarmsonoma.com)