I'm very sad today, mamas. I'm going out right now to take pics of the wreckage.

We had a huge, freak hailstorm come through yesterday. It was very localized - my neighbors down the road were fine. But my garden - from flowers to tomatoes to squash - are ruined. :wah: Actually some of the flowers by the house will recover, and we may get a few Sun Gold cherry tomatoes because they were somewhat protected by the upper parts of the plants and the netting I'd tied them to.

The saddest part was that just yesterday I was admiring how beautiful and lush everything was looking, and had weeded and prettied things up and mowed because I have friends coming to stay for the weekend tomorrow. I was feeling like I could finally be proud of the way it looked. With the late planting, the weeds taking over the week we were away, etc., it had been looking pretty ragged most of the summer. Then I weeded and mulched heavily and fed them some organic bloom concentrate and they took off! I was going to go back out there yesterday afternoon and take pics. :eyes: Oh well.

I guess it's all a lesson in impermanence. Thank goodness our CSA farm was untouched. We will still eat, you know? It's not quite like Little House. But, I'm sad. All that work and love and energy - destroyed by hail.

(It was insane. Heavy winds and heavy, large hail for over an hour. Tornado-like conditions.)

:hug: I'm sorry.

My parents had a huge garden this summer. One night deer came and ate everything.

It's one of those crummy learning experiences unfortunately.

What's funny is, we went out there today, and Matt is like, "Wow, did an animal eat this?" Um, honey, that's from the HAIL!

Sigh. Big, huge sigh. :P It's all about process, right? Right???

I'm so sorry! I would be in agony :wah:

We have deer that come every night with fawns so this year nothing was worth the time. Next year we get fencing.

:sadhug:

i had a hailstorm cause a lot of damage to my garden earlier in the season. it did recover (in large part bc i planted early and our growing season is so long here) but it was awful looking. it never really looked as "lush" afterwards, yk?

i'm so sorry :( the process is key. i had to keep telling myself that when i realized the squash borers were winning. for me i wanted to do it as organically as possible (i did use miracle grow once but no pesticides) so when i started reading up on what could kill the bugs i realized i needed to step back and gain some perspective :lol:

yesterday ds3 came in to tell me my watermelon plant has a female flower :joker: of course it's 2 months too late...it won't fruit but the process is what matters...the boys have learned a ton (as have i) this year with the garden.

:hug: i get it, mama. i'm glad y'all were safe in that storm.

oh no! I'm so sorry. :hug:

oh man that stinks. I am sorry

we had hail last night too and this morning (w/ my fog brain) I thought a large animal had trampled the garden, then I remembered. Thankfully the plants are ok. Sorry about yours, Lauren! Sad! (nak)

oh no!!! what a huge disappointment.

Thanks, mamas. Yeah, it didn't just knock things down. It snapped the sunflowers in half, and tore through the leaves. It tore holes in all the leaves and battered icy raw spots into the stems, often breaking off the stems. Yesterday it just looked crazy, but today I can see the broken pieces dying off. :wah:

I did go out and start to try to clean up the calendula; it will come back a little bit, it's not totally dead. But then I got too depressed w/the rest of it.

ahh..we had deer eat our whole garden one year..I was so upset..all that work..yeah, next time may it all work out better, mama!

Just another little :hug:

so sorry... ((((((hugs)))))))

Oh Lauren :eyes: I'm so sorry. It's funny you mention Little House. My children and I have discussed that by the garden a few times this summer. Many times we had to watch everything wilt, as there was a drought (and still is, moderate) and we had no water to water them with. It's so hard to watch, so I can't even imagine what it was like for the settlers, when that meant no food.

Is your house and are your vehicles okay? We had a hail storm once when I lived in Kentucky that destroyed our house and my Jeep Cherokee. It was summer and I had nearly 50 houseplants outside on the deck. Very large lush ones. Some as tall as me. It destroyed toys, putting holes right through little tikes houses and such and even the mailbox was destroyed. The landscaping too. Oh, and it was weird because it took the leaves off the trees! Midsummer!

That bites. I know you were really enjoying the garden. :hug:

I know, Marina, it totally makes me appreciate that I'm not going to starve because of this. And we were very lucky and escaped without much damage to the cars - not sure how. The paint seemed to fare fine and no windows busted or anything. Everything else was fine except the plants, and the seal around our stovepipe is busted and leaking again, but I think it's a silicon-seal-every-fall type of thing anyway.

I think it was a very heavy hail that almost instantly turned to slush and that's why it didn't damage anything but the plants. I'm very grateful for that. It just sort of iced them while they stood, though. I mean, it was just pouring out of the sky in buckets and the wind was whipping it onto stuff for at least an hour, so I think that's why the garden did so poorly.

:sadhug:

The heat killed ours in a day so I understand.

Blech, yuck, UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so sorry, mama.
So glad you have CSA.

Oh man, total bummer. I have many friends up that way and I'm wondering if they got some too. Need to make some calls. ((HUGS))

I am so sorry.

Oh, how awful! It sounds like a horrible storm. :(

Can I be dumb for a minute? "Northeast Queendom" means you are in Canada right? I can never keep everyone's locations straight.

That is terrible! I am SO sorry Lauren! I can't believe what havoc hail can reep... it killed my cucumbers in may too... I am so sorry! :hug: That totally sucks! (I would send you some of my garden if I could. :( )

Val

My friend brought me beautiful tomatoes and heirloom zucchini and some other lovelies from her garden further West and South of us, and it was a heartwarming gesture. :)

Northeast Queendom...sorry to be vague. I'm in the US, in the northeastern corner of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom. Only, some of us mamas up here decided to call it the Queendom instead. Why it's the NE Kingdom, anyway? Gov. George Aiken dubbed it so in the 1940s because he felt it was "so beautiful, it should be called the Northeast Kingdom." Now, it's mostly synonomous with "Wow you live in the sticks." ;)

OH NOO!!!!!!!!! :wah: I'm so sorry :hug: