Shredded Kale after Marble-sized Hail
I’m sure there are a lot of you out there in the same boat as me today. You woke up to find that your garden had been pummeled by hail and is now a shredded mess of it’s former self. Well, the truth is that you probably were woken up by the thunder and the pounding of the hail last night and knew the morning would be dreary because you’d have to face the damage. So what do you do now? I have a few suggestions that I’ve used in the past to recover my garden.
#1: Eat fast
This is really just common sense. If you had lettuce or spinach that got shredded by the hail – eat it. Sure, it’s dirtier than normal, but you can pick it up off the ground as easily as you could cut it from the plant. You can think of it as pre-cut if you need a silver lining.
#2: White Buckets / Milk Jugs
I’ve been using white 5-gallon buckets and gallon milk jugs to help struggling plants for the past few years. It’s quite simple, just plop the bucket or jug down over the plant and let it mend on it’s own. I’m not quite sure about the science behind it, but I suspect that the translucent plastic diffuses the sunlight which makes it less harsh on the plant, while at the same time providing it with a nice warm and humid environment. The moisture evaporates less quickly inside this makeshift greenhouse and it also provides a bug barrier. Beware that it can backfire if there is no ventilation and the heat gets to be too much, so either take the tops off your milk jugs or poke holes in the bucket or remove them completely if it’s supposed to be a hot day.
#3: Kill Bugs
Your plants are weak now and the last thing they need is to be feasted on by bugs. If they have any leaves left, they’re probably pretty torn up, which means they’re not going to be as effective at doing their job of making food for the plant. So help it out and prevent bugs from making more holes. For me, the big enemy is usually flea beetles and I’ve used Fertilome’s Triple Action Plus spray to combat them in the past. It’s up to you what you use and it’ll vary with how “organic” you want your garden to be.
#4: Be Patient
It will take time before you know if you’re plants are going to recover. Some of them might not make it, but before you get all angry or sad about it, remember that this is just part of being a gardener. And be thankful that you’re not a farmer who depends on your crops to make a living. If your cold crops don’t pull through, you probably just need to replant them later for fall harvest. This storm hit me in early June, about 2-3 weeks after our average last frost date. So for me, and others in that situation, replanting things like summer squash from seed is a viable option. Sure, it’ll be a later harvest, but it’s doable. And of course, you can still do transplants for peppers and tomatoes, etc.
Squash plant 5 minutes after hail and 2 weeks later
#5: Be Prepared
This isn’t for recovery, but I was a Boy Scout, so that motto stuck with me. If the weather looks like hail might be possible, cover your plants. If you’ve got buckets or pots (kitchen or plant), put those over your plants and put some weight on top of them since there’s a good chance there’ll be some wind with the hail. Even a tarp or patio chairs will make a nice temporary roof over your plants, but again, make sure they’re secure. Nothing would make you feel worse that having your protection system turn into a wrecking ball if the wind knocked it over on your plants.
Hail sucks. That’s the bottom line. It’s never fun to see your plants mangled, but it can be really rewarding to watch them bounce back. Gardening is always a bit of a crap shoot, so just hope that your luck will turn around soon.
Do you have any suggestions? Put them in the comments below if you do.
So, what do you do when you’ve got your cold weather seeds in the ground, but it’s not quite time to put anything else out? Sadly, you wait. This is a hard time for me as a gardener because I have a hard time buckling down to do the boring parts of gardening when I don’t feel like I get much in return. Sure, pulling weeds can be rewarding, but when you’re just pulling weeds from a bare garden, I can’t help but feel like I’m just making room for more weeds to grow. Once my veggies are established I feel like I’m liberating them from the weeds and giving them room to stretch out and eliminating their competition for water and nutrients. I just don’t get the same feeling at times like this.
To be fair, I have some lettuce and spinach growing and I have done a cursory job of weeding around them. And even though there are spots out there that I know are only going to get worse if I let them go, I just can’t convince myself to go out there and pull weeds on cool and windy days like we’ve been having here. Even thinking about the fact that those weeds are robbing the soil of nutrients that my future veggies will need just isn’t enough.
Clearly I need some motivation – or a swift kick in the pants. I think sunnier days and a less hectic schedule will help, but I’m not sure. It’s times like this when I realize that I’m probably not cut out to be a full-fledged farmer. I just don’t seem to have the dedication to do it. So I’ll just stick to my little backyard garden plot and hope that I can muster enough energy to get out there one of these days.
So, now that I’ve outed myself as a terrible downtime gardener, what are you doing right now? Have any suggestions for me or others needing a dose of motivation? Leave a comment below and let me know.
When I laid out my plans for my weekend, gardening made it’s way on the list more than once. Among other things, I was really hoping to get out and head off some of the annoying weeds that have already staked a claim in my precious garden. I did get some pulled from around my lettuce, but for the most part my outdoor plans were rained out this weekend. Of course, getting some nice spring moisture is a huge benefit right now, so you won’t find me complaining. Also, when I do find time to go pull weeds, they should come out even easier if the ground is wet.
I also made a point of picking up a bale of straw for mulching in the garden. My hope is that I can pull the weeds that have come up through the bare spots (I had straw last year, but a windy spring has removed much of it), and then spread out a nice layer of straw to keep more from coming up. Of course, the fact that I’ve had bare spots just waiting for wayward seeds to drift by and take root means that they’ll probably come through no matter what, but I can dream right?
How about you – did you manage to do anything with your garden this weekend?
I’ve got to confess right off the bat that I’m not very good at starting seeds indoors. I’ve tried, but I always end up with less than a 50% success rate. It rarely stops me from trying though. The ROI on a package of seeds just seems so promising when compared to the cost of buying plants from a greenhouse. So each year I pull out the beat up plastic pots from the year before and dutifully go about filling them with starter soil or potting soil and plant my seeds. I don’t have any fancy lighting setup, so I have to rely on the sun to do all of the work for me. While this means I don’t use any electricity, it also means that my little seeds aren’t really getting a great start on their lives. 
Once the seeds sprout, they start stretching toward the light and eventually end up getting long and lanky – not exactly what you’d pick out at the greenhouse as a robust transferable plant. Nevertheless, I rotate their containers and try to get them to even out every couple of days.
After a month or more of taking up valuable counter space, rotating containers and doing my best to keep the cats from knocking everything over I start putting the plants outside for a few hours at a time to harden them off. Given that I am generally at work during the nicest parts of the day, this can be kind of hard. It always seems like I’m gambling between leaving them out too long to get dried out and cooked in the sun, or not long enough to actually prepare them for life in the great outdoors. To be honest, I usually just put them out for a day or two while I’m at work and call it good.
So like I said at the beginning, I’m not very good at starting seeds, but I do recommend that you give herbs a shot. I’ve found that basil is an easy starter and a vigorous grower, so even if you transplant it when it’s small, you’ll still have ample amounts to make your pesto in the fall. Also, herbs tend to be more costly at the greenhouses, so if you can spend a buck or two on a seed packet versus $3-4 for one plant, it seems like a
worthwhile risk. If you’re looking for some quality seed, I’ve had good success with Botanical Interests and I do recommend them. They offer certified organic seed and a number of heirloom varieties, too. Plus, they’re from right here in Colorado!
What’s your take? Is starting seeds indoors worth the hassle or just a big waste of time? If you’ve had success, what’s your secret?
It’s hard to believe but it’s actually okay to start doing some planting here in Colorado – along the front range, least. I suppose it might be more of a shock in years when we weren’t having temperatures in the 60′s on a daily basis in early March, but it still feels strange to be putting seed in the ground when I have to wear a jacket and use the heater in my truck for my morning commute.
So what should you be planting now? Well, don’t let the warm weather get you too excited. This is Colorado after all and there’s still a really good chance that we’re going to get some more freezing temps and maybe even some snow before old man winter is gone for good. (remember that 4″ of snow we got last week in mid-April?) But if you want to plant salad greens or snow peas, now is a great time to do it.
But what else can I plant? Look for seed packets that tell you it’s okay to plant outdoors 4-6 weeks before the average frost or even say to plant as soon as the ground can be worked. Remember that the average last frost here isn’t until around Mother’s Day in mid-May, so hold off on plants that aren’t cold hardy.
This isn’t meant to be a definitive list, but some things you can at least consider planting now are lettuce, spinach, peas, cabbage, radishes, carrots, kale, onions, potatoes and broccoli.
It’s also a good time, and maybe even a little late, to be starting your seeds indoors for warm weather transplants. But we’ll cover that in another post.
Leave a comment below and tell us what you’re planting.
