It was a long, sleepless night – October 10th – spent listening to extraordinary wind. Hurricane Milton traveled across Florida from somewhere around Tampa on the Gulf, to the Space Center and offshore on the east coast. I live about 50 miles north of where the eye traveled, and we got some big wind.
Amazingly, we never lost power. It has to do with all the tree trimming the power company has been doing. And all the previous storms that help clear things out.



We got off lucky with minimal flooding and damage from the hurricane. A few large oak branches fell in the driveway and the rest is mostly small stuff. I was pleasantly surprised after hearing that nasty wind.
In my garden, the tomato plants are dead, the eggplant needed to be propped back up, and the Moringa tree is completely down. My beet seedlings look like they might not make it, as they were flattened.
I had been excited to get growing this Fall, but now I feel like giving up. I seem to have way more setbacks than successes when it comes to growing a productive vegetable garden.
We were lucky. I haven’t seen news about the Gulf coast, but the damage must be horrible. They were still cleaning up debris from Hurricane Helene. North Carolina is in shambles, and fortunately this hurricane did not head in that direction.
The metal hurricane shutters on the windows will stay there for now. Hurricane season doesn’t end for over a month.

