I love to garden and truly miss it during the winter. Our
fruits and vegetable gardens have been spectacular the last couple of years.
Last year we had 13 tomato plants that yielded over 225 pounds of tomatoes. We
were busy harvesting and making sauce and paste through October.
All was looking good for 2014 in the garden. Tomatoes,
peppers and eggplants were in cages, green beans were running up poles, and
corn was on schedule to be knee high for Fourth of July. Then Nature hit!
We got 20 minutes of hail on June 16th. In January we don’t
get 20 minutes of hail! This hail came down in sheets. It was big, it was cold
and the temperature dropped 15 degrees so it actually accumulated on the
ground.
The shade cloth saved the lettuce crop. Who knew putting shade
cloth up for your lettuce can double when hail strikes!
Our blueberries were netted but unlike the shade cloth they
still got plummeted by the hail. Now I have blueberries with what looks to be
age spots. The flowers have a white cast on the leaves and the flowers were
blown off. The corn, the cabbage, the peppers, the tomatoes and the eggplants
were stripped of leaves and buds.
I have weathered garden hazards before like deer, teenagers,
firecrackers and toddlers but escaped with minor damage. This storm, which
1-mile down the road did not hit, almost caused me to cry! The cantaloupe and
watermelon plants just died. The pickling cucumbers are on life support. It is
times like this that I am happy I do not farm for a living!
Has nature ever devastated your garden? Do you feel my pain?
