Late yesterday afternoon, the clouds darkened and started looking fierce. We turned on the weather radio and sure enough, there were severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. You know the warning: possibility of large hail, strong winds exceeding 60 mph, and heavy rain along with lightning. There wasn’t much we could to prepare except watch the sky and keep an eye on things. You can’t cover an acre of garden! And we prayed.

The front rolled in and the thunder was a continual roll. Then the wind came with driving rain. And the hail. A gardener’s worst nightmare. We envisioned our tender plants being shredded. It hailed fingertip-sized hail for about ten minutes while huge wind gusts whipped my hanging baskets off the porch along with empty pots. Would the hoop houses still stand? Were the garden plants shredded?

In fifteen minutes, the storm had passed. No tornadoes. Cautiously we checked the garden after pulling a hanging basket out of the hot tub. There were lots of holes in the squash and cucumber vines with broken leaves. The corn rows had a distinct lean to the east. But all in all, the garden survived well. The plastic was still on the hoop houses, although there were a few worn spots on the ridge where the plastic had whipped against the top joints.

But it’s like life; sometimes you’re real scared things will fall apart, then the sun comes out and you discover that you made it after all and life is good.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Holy cow!!!! I am so glad all is well. Very scary. I am stuck in Cleveland and we are waiting for it here.

    So sorry Terri :-(

  2. So glad the storm didn’t cause you significant problems Jackie. (Terri, sorry for your loss!) Since visiting you two a couple of years ago, we always look for what’s happening in your Minnesota area when we watch the weather. Michigan is due to get the storms today/this evening so I am praying that we don’t get too strong of winds and hail. Our first corn is just coming in and it’s hard to stand it back up when it’s that tall.

  3. jackie,

    Glad to hear you and Will made through okay. Love your columns and i have been reading your columns since you had articles in American Surival Guide.

    Take Care,

    Michael

  5. i’m glad you fared better than we did here in your corner of new mexico. sadly our garden was pretty much wiped out due to 4 inches of hail that lasted for more than 10 minutes. rick was in tears, all his plants that he had grown from seed were gone. but the storm passed and we moved on, still waiting to hear from the insurance company for our claim for a new roof. we bought a few tomato and pepper plants to replace all that we lost. so i won’t be spending as many hours over the hot stove canning but we will have a little to put up. i have a care package of chili for you :)

  6. Glad to hear that you made it through. I was worried about the storms last night as well. I don’t think we were hit to hard down here.

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