@Midwest67 - We have a torch and use in occasionally. Be careful as the flame is pretty invisible and it would be easy to burn yourself. We use it to start fires, burn weeds growing in hard to reach areas and around the garden fence.
All the first eggplant buds (what grows after it flowers) are falling off. Is that normal or is there something I can do? It’s being watered regularly and in the sun.
My eggplants drop flowers usually because of stress. Is it too wet, too dry, too much nitrogen in your fertilizer? I feed with a high middle number fertilizer, flower booster, because the first number is for leaf production; which tends to push flower production off. Could be the flowers are not pollinated? Eggplants, like tomatoes are self pollinating. I have helped both tomatoes and eggplants by just giving the flowers on either a nudge. If you tap the flowers, the pollen falls off and reaches the stigmas.
I have a question too.
Do you use saucers under your containers or pot feet? We have been having loads of rain. I am wondering if the extra ventilation from pot feet would help my potted plants and prevent deck stains?
I don’t use any saucers outside. Mosquitos love them!
ETA - If I want to keep the saucer and pot together, so I don’t misplace anything, I just flip the saucer over and sit the pot on top.
I also don’t use saucers because of mosquitos. I haven’t had any issue with water running out of pots.
I’m very excited as I have a new crop of flowers blooming in the garden - the lilies are finally out, the hostas are budding, and my trumpet vine is full of buds. .
I use saucers because my H feels the pots themselves + water drainage leave lots of marks on the deck. I did start buying a little better quality saucer - heavier plastic - so I can clean them and keep them and resuse. When there is a lot of rain I take the leaf blower (I use it often anyway to blow our patio because we have lots of trees and falling stuff!) and blow the water out of the saucers.
Nodding in agreement on mosquito control @greenwitch and @momofsenior1. We live just south of Mosquito Lagoon 
Noseeums along with the pot stains are my works in process.
The leaf blower is a great idea @abasket. We just got a battery powered one on Father’s Day, maybe if I start my day there, that will help push the noseeums along with the water away too?
What color are your trumpet vines @momofsenior1 ?
@author The trumpet vine flowers are bright orange. 
Our neighbors have a white variety, I think it is a trumpet. Are Angel Trumpets the same? I am trying to figure out ways to limit the bees at my hummingbird feeders. I don’t want the little birds getting stung. I was reading that bees don’t like herbal scents. Wondering if anyone has advice or tried lemongrass or citronella plants around feeders.
I have zero clue about what plants are what but my landscaper told us ours are a trumpet vine ; ). They attract a ton of hummingbirds! And sorry I don’t have any advice on the feeders but I would think that bees and birds co-exist probably fairly well in general. I would be more concerned about getting stung myself when we replenishing the feeder.
Wanted to give an update on my privit hedge. It has completely come back and looks amazing! It’s only been a month! I’m so pleased we listened to the professional advice as some of our neighbors had theirs die and had to be ripped out completely. The harsh pruning really rejuvenated the entire hedge, even some of the ones we thought were dead sprung back to life beautifully.
We’re getting ready for a very, very hot spell here over the next few days. I’m getting up early tomorrow to run the sprinklers and then will hand water on Friday (I can only water via sprinkler on even days per our town’s water ordinance but can hand water any time before 10 am and after 4pm). Besides making sure that everything gets watered, is there anything else I should be concerned about?
Angel trumpets are very different from trumpet vine. They have large flowers that always point down (unlike devil trumpets that point up), and they are a large, tree-like shrub, not a vine. The flowers are usually off white. Both angel and devil trumpets are beautiful, but poisonous. Devil trumpets in their wild form are called loco weed.
I picked the first eggplant (some slim variety, about 8".) Now to see if I get any more.
Everything else in pretty much on schedule.
Here comes the heat wave! Need. rain.
Flowers are looking amazing.
I ended up getting a smaller, less powerful weed torch. It worked okay on the weeds in the cracks in the driveway. In hindsight, I think I should have gotten the more powerful one because it was slow going with the one with the 14 oz. propane tank.
Convenient, but slow.
The runner grass is … something else. I’m making headway, little by little. Lots of weeding by hand.
Some of my pineapples have been picked. So tasty
We have our first batch of veggies! We ate our first tomato last week (probably could have used another day on the vine but still yummy) and I have three zucchini that are nearly ready. Cucumbers are growing as well. The only plant that doesn’t seem to be producing anything is my pepper plant. We’ll skip that next year. It’s very satisfying to be eating our own veggies
Lots of cherrry tomatoes, sweet, but they and the string beans are more than we’d usually eat. Two of the 8-ball zuccs are good. After the one Japanese eggplant, I see blooms but no more fruits yet.
I picked one patio tomato early and made an Air-fried green tomato, and it was delish.
OMG, my tomato plants tripled in weight overnight! Had to take an hour to try and get them upright last night. They are LOADED with tomatoes - only have picked some of the small orange sweet ones so far.
My cucumber is dying out - got a few but for as green and lush it was and full of flowers it was a bit of a bust. However I made a tall teepee out of sticks for it and it fully climbed the 6.5 ft teepee!
Kale, kale, kale. I like it so have been having it almost nightly.
@abasket - Our cucumber plant just started not looking good either. I have a couple of small cucumbers but I’m worried that they won’t continue to grow now. We’ll see. Like your plant, it was full of flowers and lush a few weeks ago. Wonder if mine took a beating in the extreme heat we had.
Cucumber plants seem to die out pretty fast. One day they are lush and green, a couple days later the leaves dry out. We too have had the fast heat.
At our garden meeting this week our master gardener was encouraging some people to replant cucumbers even now in bare areas of their gardens. Sort of makes sense that while August still has heat, the later August cooler nights might benefit the plant.
This year’s growing season is going so fast! Started so slow here in the midwest.
I over planted our raised bed (rookie mistake). I think the zucchini and tomato plants crowded out the rest, especially the pepper plant. Next year we’ll know better but it looked like plenty of room when all the plants were small ; )