Comments on: Hail Damage

By: Susan Croteau

Susan Croteau — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:19:16 +0000

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

By: Susan Hutchinson

Susan Hutchinson — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:34:26 +0000

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

By: Thom

Thom — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:10:33 +0000

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!

By: quickgardens

quickgardens — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:31:01 +0000

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.

By: scochenour

scochenour — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:01:07 +0000

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.

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:57:23 +0000

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.