Prize for the tallest lettuce

Truly, the garden is a chaos right now. As we all know, there have been multiple heatwaves and about five minutes of rain all summer. Which has affected the plants, obviously. But also my ability to be out in the garden. It's like scorched earth out there. The lawn is just yellow. It hasn't needed a mow since I can't remember when. There's a massive crack in the soil through the cabbages. The leeks haven't grown a centimetre in a month. Look away for a second and the lettuces have shot up to knee height. I've got a water butt and immediately after installing it a few years ago we had the driest of winters. It's currently empty. I catch all the spare water from cooking and lug it out into the garden. We're not actually under a hosepipe ban but that's not the point. Another problem this year is that I've been away at critical junctures. My tomatoes stalled for a while. Then they should have been planted out. But I was going on holiday and didn't want to plant little babies then abandon…