This afternoon a big storm came through and along with it pea sized hail. We weren’t home when it it came through, but from the looks of it it hailed for some time. I lost my entire garden. Tomatoes, eggplants, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, beans, bak choi, red cabbage, broccoli, broc rabb, orach, peas, spinach, and arugula. Not to mention daises, lavender, verbena, lobelia, and a few other flowers. Here’s some pictures of the damage:
I’m really sad that all the work and effort I put into starting all the plants from see was destroyed in a few minutes of hail. Some plants I wont be able to put back in the garden. Peas, for instance wont grow fast enough to get a harvest from before it gets too hot for the plants to set fruit. I don’t think I’ll be able to grow tomatoes from seed starting this late in the season. I think I’ll be able to put everything else back in, but it was frustrating because I was really close to being able to harvest some things. It’s sad I lost my garden, but I’m worried for some of my fellow farmers whose farms are right in the path of the storm. I hope that they didn’t see this kind of damage. It’s sickening to think that a 30 minutes storm could wipe out months of work.
Oh well, I guess tomorrow I’ll start cleaning things up and planting again.
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June 7, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Maria
So sorry for you … I suppose that’s the real part of real food — you can lose a lot of effort in an instant. Hope you’re able to redeem some of your garden.
June 8, 2009 at 6:01 am
scochenour
Thanks Maria. It doesn’t look like much is salvageable. The hail tore off most of the leaves of the plants, which means that any of the leafy greens that might come back would be in a flowering state rather than vegetative since they are almost all biennial. A few varieties of beans hadn’t emerged yet, so they should be fine. I had two tomato and one eggplant left over from planting that I can put in the garden (I hope they’re not too root-bound, though).
It’s a pretty sickening feeling, though. I’m going to wait a day or two to let stuff dry out and then get in there and replant what I can. I suppose that’s all I can do.
June 8, 2009 at 7:31 pm
quickgardens
I’m so sorry. Such is the life of a farmer. Farmers have guts to put up with the uncertainties that cannot be controlled. I look forward to seeing the garden recover.
June 9, 2009 at 6:10 am
Thom
I can’t imagine how you feel. When we found out we had to pot all of our plants because our neighbors had sprayed for termites right next to our garden I felt similarly, but that was about the soil, not about the plants themselves. I guess we can always find more soil and more pots, but the plants are the tricky thing—we have to stick with them. We through our lot in with them and cross our fingers and hope for the best.
In “On Fairy Stories” Tolkien talks about eucatastrophe, that at the cusp of total loss and the world being enveloped in evil and darkness good will always triumph. I pray that your garden will be eucatastrophic this year!
June 9, 2009 at 7:34 am
Susan Hutchinson
I’m so sorry to see the damage to your garden. I, too, am a gardener although I’ve never experienced hail damage, I have lost an entire garden to a hungry crowd of deer. Total devastation – looked like a nuclear bomb went off. I can sympathize with you. I agree its too late for tomatoes and peas from seed, but everything else should be ok. What about fall peas? I get a small harvest here in Maine in early fall. Can you purchase tomato seedlings somewhere? At least it would be something. God bless you in your efforts to grow your own, we do the same. “…feel the need to grow my own, ’cause the time is close at hand…”
Susan Hutchinson
June 22, 2009 at 9:19 am
Susan Croteau
Yesterday a storm came through and hail the size of a marble pretty much destroyed my garden, we had just missed it as we had been out of town for the weekend.. I went and looked at my garden, went into the house, crawled in bed and cried. Today I am okay.. we will get out there as soon as it dries a little bit and clean up and see what is salvageable.. I don’t know if I have the money to replace what we lost.. but maybe this is the time to put in some green manure crops and hope next year will the land will have a better soil. God Bless You and your garden… Susan in Utah