Thanks Jenn, but luckily I was unaffected by all the flooding, except for some tomato blossom/fruiting issues and a very soggy yard
The heat here the past few days has really dried out my growing mix, but I still have some curly tops and am trying to figure out why. I have also found a few less-than-perfect leaves (nothing too serious-looking or yellowing so far, luckily), and I plan to post those in the pest/disease forum to make sure its pest related and nothing that's a fungus/pathogen (fingers crossed).
I still find some tiny green aphids, a few white flies, and some other critters I can't identify. I might ask about these in the pest part of the forum as well. I go out and hunt them pretty much every night, taking care to keep the ladybugs/lacewings/spiders where they are. I manually remove the pesky or unknown bugs, unless a leaf has more than a few, then I clip it off and destroy it. I also have been sanitizing my clippers with an isopropyl alcohol dilution as an extra precaution against the spread of any diseases, given the constant rain, followed by the intense heat, and high humidity.
I finally stopped procrastinating and MacGyvered an upper extension to my trellis system. It may look rather ridiculous, but it gives me an extra foot or so on either side (width-wise) and a longer extension on the right side of the trough where the taller plants are growing. All together it's about 9' or so tall and works for how and where my plants are growing the tallest. As strange as it looks, the upper trellis is actually quite solid. I simply used some more of the same cheap folding cages I made the bottom part from mounted upside down, along with some cross-supports and a ton of zip ties and twine to stabilize it all together and secure it to the tall stakes and original trellis foundation.
Worried about fungal infection, I have tied some of the foliage branches to the support system and none of the foliage branches are touching (it's hard to tell in the pics though). That should help provide decent airflow, despite the over-crowded planting pattern.
I am finally getting a decent amount of fruit to set, although it's still kind of small compared to what I had hoped by this point. I'm fine with this however, because for awhile I was worried I wouldn't get any tomatoes at all
. Again, they are difficult to see in these photos.
Obviously, the garden isn't quite what I envisioned at the start of the season, but given the moisture-retentive mix, the onslaught of rain, then the high heat and humidity, it isn't as big of a disaster as I feared it would be (so far anyway). I've learned so much that I want to do differently next year, and I don't feel quite so bad now about my first attempt at large container gardening. Thanks TV forum!
In the last of the pics below you can also see my Muncher cukes growing happily up the trellis I built, and they are blossoming like crazy. There also 2 jalapeno pepper plants in front of them that are healthy and are putting on plenty of blossoms and small peppers. I can't wait for grilled jalapeno poppers with a seasoned goat/cream cheese mixture wrapped in bacon (yum!).
The pics aren't great as they were taken this evening or late tonight after I was done with my nightly pest/disease hunting. I will take and post some better ones in the daylight as natural light pictures always tend to turn out better. But for what its worth, I said I'd post some pics so here they are (clearer ones to follow in a day or two).
Most important, a TON of thanks to all those who have posted responses with advice, comments, criticisms, etc. Please keep chiming in if you feel like it, it's always appreciated. I have learned many things from the kind folks here so far and plan to to do many things differently next year. I will keep this thread updated as the season progresses, but here's what I've got so far: