Bad Weather!!

[violet0996]

We just went through a nasty hailstorm NW of Austin that beat my plants all to heck for ten minutes!! The hail was at least golf ball size when I went to look at it when it had just begun, and I saw pictures on the news of 3.5 inch hail from a location a mile or so away. Plus I could have sworn I heard a tornado at which point I stopped watching the hail and shooed the kids into the center of the house and there were lots of sirens not long after. My 8 year old is pretty freaked out. I was glad to see that those of you in south Austin/Bastrop weren't affected - at least so far. There's another two waves on the way, also containing hail but only nickel size.

I'll be anxious to go out and survey the damage tomorrow.

[coronabarb]

Wow! I hope everything will turn out okay for you, violet.

[robin303]

Sorry hearing about your garden Violet. I live I-35 a few miles from Onion Creek. Didn’t get any hail but got 1.5” of rain.

[violet0996]

Well it could've been worse. Once I was able to inspect everything I lost a German Red Strawberry and an Arkansas Traveller, Cherokee Purple split in half and everything else lost 10%-20% off tops and branches but are big enough to keep growing from the laterals. The beans seemed to suffer no damage at all and the Swiss Chard suffered the worst of the veggies - it was beat to the ground. I thought the sunflower would be broken because of its thick, stiff stems but instead its big leaves were just full of holes.

On the bright side we gained a new member in the family yesterday, 7 lbs, 5 oz girl a tad smaller than the biggest tomato ever (is it still 7 lbs 12 oz?) but pretty as a perfect pink 'mater!

-dawn

[robin303]

Congratulations Dawn. Just think a little garden helper in a few years.

[Lilypon]

Congratulations Dawn on the wonderful new arrival to your family and the majority of your garden surviving that darn hail (one of my veggie gardens was totally wiped out last year).

[Razorback04]

Yes, congratulations on the new arrival, and I feel your pain on the severe weather. Our "normal" (is there such a thing) last frost date here in NW Arkansas is around April 15-20. I found some nifty styrofoam frost covers on sale at Wal-mart so I decided to gamble and set some tomatoes out around the 15th. The first night they were in the ground we got severe thunderstorms with small hail and 50-60 mph winds. From then until now, it has stormed and then turned cold about every 3 or 4 days. We even had a frost on May 12th this year. I've never seen it frost that late here ever and I've lived here for all of my 49 years. Somehow, my tomatoes are still alive (thanks to the frost covers) and are finally starting to show signs of recovering from what has been a brutal Spring of weather. Oh, did I mention the potato beetles? I've had to do battle with those guys too.

[creister]

Congratulations on your baby! Most of the severe weather has by-passed us, but we have recieved some rain from it all. Our temps have been fluctuating between 70+ and 90+ for highs and 60 or low50's for lows. Read no 80 degree days and 60 degree nights. Next week 4 days of 93+ are forcast. No fruit set for sure.

[violet0996]

Thanks for the congratulations, we've already nicknamed her "glow worm" because of the UV pad she's wrapped in for jaundice.

I am starting to despair that I'm not going to get much of anything in the way of tomatoes out of my spring garden. Between a late freeze and the hail I still don't have ANY baby tomatoes on my plants and I fear that by the next flowering cycle it'll be too hot for all but a few of them to be setting. -dawn

[creister]

Keep the faith. If not, there is always the fall season.