There isn't much to my story so far. In my first spring and summer of
gardening I managed to produce maybe four zukes, some snap peas, an
abudance of tomatoes, two stunted little cukes, some tiny misshaped
greenbeans, basil and spearmint like crazy, and more okra than I knew
what to do with. Most of my failures, I think, were due to uneven
watering. In the beginning, I was using a regular lawn sprinkler. Many
people in these forums suggested using soaker hoses for a number of
reasons. I tried some of the cheap ones from Wally World, and have
used them with some success. Unfortunately, I won't be able to replace
these hoses if I find myself suddenly living in a third world country,
nor can I expect the municipal water system to continue functioning.
So one of my biggest projects in the near future will be to build a
rain water collection and drip irrigation system using materials that
can be obtained locally. I don't expect this to be easy.

I recently spread my first batch of finished compost over one of my
veggie beds and planted some green beans and bell peppers. The beans
were poking out of the soil by the third day and the pepper
transplants established themselves rather quickly.

I had some other plants growing in a variety of conditions. In one bed
of okra, for which I had no mulch, I had allowed an understory of some
of the less competitive weeds to grow up. These okra plants, despite
being blown over by a storm earlier in the season, were producing in
abundance.

In another bed, with only a thin layer of grass clippings as mulch, I
had more peppers and green beans with some parley and basil mixed in.
These plants were surviving, but the small amount of mulch allowed the
soil to dry out almost as fast as the bed with no mulch, where
everything struggled except for a few okra and two eggplants which
were just beginning to bud out.

This is where everything came to a crashing halt as a big, ugly storm
lashed my garden with 100+ mph winds and eventually dropped a large
tree on everything.