Heat wave taking a huge toll on me and my plants

[cschiavoni]

We've had about a week of 95-105 degree temps here with very hot nights, and when it rains it comes in the form of damaging thunderstorms, twice with hail. My plants have been hit with an array of problems, from excessive wilting, to getting tons of leaf damage from hail, fungus problems from too much water (often storms would hit right after I watered, we have limited warning when it comes to these afternoon storms), blossoms dropping, blossom end rot in my baby tomatoes, fruit production halting in most cases with the exception of my peppers and eggplant.

This is my first year gardening and I'm pretty bummed. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I'm scared my plants won't be able to bounce back after this. I trimmed off a lot of dead leaves and stems today (like a LOT), added calcium to correct PH imbalance, applied a liberal amount of neem oil and cleaned up the soil around each plant.

I want to water them because it's so hot but I'm scared I'm just going to over water them even more than I have been. Should I just let the storms do it for me? I did order actual mulch to lay down in a couple of days (I should have done this long ago, but there's my inexperience showing).

Anyways I've attached some pictures of what everything looks like after my trimming work today as well as pictures showing some of what I trimmed off. Any insight, tips, advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. This heat wave is driving me nuts.

Biggest problem is with all my tomato plants, especially the cherry tomatoes. After trimming off stuff today it looks miserable. Here's a picture of some of what I trimmed off:


Here is what it looks like now (so sad):



Other fungal problem is with my zucchini and straightneck squash plants. I trimmed off most of the leaves that looked like this:


Here is the zucchini plant currently:


Straightneck squash plant (smaller plant in front is bell peppers):


Pictures of my other two tomato plants:





Eggplant:


Herbs (this was after watering them, before they look totally different, they wilt drastically every single day):


Close up of hail damage:

 

[Beth_B]

(((hug))) Yes this summer is brutally hot and dry, lower temps than yours here but still very hot and drought conditions; it's barely rained here in months.

And you have the added challenge of growing in containers. I have some herbs and annuals in shallow containers like yours and though I'm a big advocate of no frequent watering, I've been doing mine almost every day. They just get crispy otherwise!

 

[Becky]

Sorry to hear that! You could try water spikes so that they have a slow release of water through the day...?

 

[zigs]

Blimey, you are up against it.

I like Beckie's idea. Maybe next year you could add some water retaining gel to the soil.

 

[cschiavoni]

That's a great idea, I will definitely be doing many things differently next year for sure. I'm hoping the mulching, trimming, calcium correcting, and perhaps less water will get them back in shape and producing again through the fall. I pollinated a female flower on my zucchini this morning. We will see. You live and learn! Everything just looked so good such a short time ago. Hate this heat! It seems to be coming to an end though (the heat wave) and I hope temps are downhill from here this year.

 

[cschiavoni]

Oh forgot to add, storms quickly killed all of my bok choy seedlings. Will try again with new seeds once temps cool.

 

[zigs]

Sounds like you need a canopy too, can you fit one to the balcony?

 

[atlmom5]

Oh, I feel your pain. We've had over 45 straight days of temps in the mid to upper 90's here in Atlanta. We're actually in a drought, over the summer, we've experienced some afternoon or late evening showers, but it still isn't enough.

I don't have any real experience with container gardening, but I think Becky's idea sounds great. Good luck with your garden.

 

[IcyBC]

I have similar weather like yours, and potted plants are suffering! I watered them in the morning and late in evening, but it seemed not enough. My gladiolus is drooping by the afternoon, and growing stage seemed to come to a stand still.

 

[Corzhens]

It's really sad when nature vents its ire on us. We have just experienced drought which gave our plants a hard time surviving. As I had posted in some other threads, we were watering our plants twice a day and not just simple watering but gradual watering which means you go back to the plant to water it again a bit later. Watering is in the early morning and late afternoon. But sometimes we add another watering session when the plants looked wilted at noon time. And now the rains are coming and our extended garden is occasionally suffering from flood.

When it's too hot, I would suggest that you water your tomato in the ground and slowly. Let the soil absorb the water little by little. Avoid wetting the leaves.