Her patch was struggling to cope with a toxic mix of unrelenting heat and humidity, combined with a lack of water due to Level 2 restrictions.

She knew she couldn't keep all of her plants alive and was wondering how long she could hang on.

Take a look at it now and it's hard to believe times were so tough not so long ago.

Decent rain has left the vegetables luscious and thriving, and Ms Fogarty's grin is from ear-to-ear.

"We're almost back into full production," she said.

"We should have lettuce back online next week and we should have our bok choy starting to be ready the week after.

"We've got cucumbers starting to come back again, we are getting there and it's really nice to see it looking so good.

"I am so grateful that we have had the rain and I am grateful that water restrictions have eased back as well."

Ms Fogarty runs Blue Boat Farm Gate in Medowie and is a regular face at the Slow Food Earth Market in The Levee.

The presence of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Hunter has presented another challenge in the past few weeks and forced her to contemplate how she could safely sell her food to shoppers.

"Because of COVID-19 we decided that it was too risky for us to go to the earth market, we have an immunocompromised person in our house so we thought about what else we could do to sell our food. A farm gate pick up was the only thing we could come up with," she said.

"Farm gates are not always convenient for people, especially when they can go to the grocery store and get everything that they want."

Ms Fogarty has been surprised by the amount of shoppers who are prepared to drive to her farm and pick up their pre-ordered vegetables under strict distancing measures.

"The people that come generally have said to me that they prefer to come here instead of the grocery store because it's very safe to come here," she said.

"We have a very thorough disinfecting regime, we only allow one person to come to the farm at a time and everything has to be booked in advance. We are being very careful and the people that come are accepting that."

Ms Fogarty's vegetable garden is likely to continue to flourish with the Bureau of Meteorology predicting more rain for the Hunter over the coming days. The seasonal outlook for the next three months isn't as encouraging though. There is a high chance of average rainfall for much of the country, but the east coast is expected to miss out.

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