August 21, 2019 • 21 mins
Hail is one of the most destructive forces when it comes to the health and well-being of your garden. If you’re anything like myself, you can relate to the devastation of walking outside and seeing your garden in tatters following a hail storm. Unfortunately, a recent storm crushed months of hard work, time, and money. Even though I was bummed and initially wanted to quit gardening, it ultimately wound up creating a positive shift in my attitude. Today I’m going to outline several strategies on how you can salvage, recover, and rebuild moving forward. Don’t miss my idea on how to protect your plants from future storms.
Some key highlights from today's episode:
• What to do with a hailed out garden
• Why you shouldn’t immediately rip out your garden
• If and when you should re-plant
If you're ready to begin this homesteading journey, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/grow to access my full library of resources to guide you down the path.
As mentioned in this episode, you can find the perfect compost tea recipe to help your garden recover here: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2016/07/compost-tea-recipe.html
OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR YOUR HOMESTEAD:
- Sign up for weekly musings from my homestead: http://theprairiehomestead.com/letter
- Get my free homesteading tutorials & recipes here: www.theprairiehomestead.com
- Jill on Instagram: @jill.winger
- Jill on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theprairiehomestead
- Apply to be a guest on the Old-Fashioned on Purpose podcast: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/podcast-guest-application
Did you enjoy listening to this episode? Please drop a comment below or leave a review to let us know. This can help other folks learn about this podcast and we also really appreciate the feedback!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
There's one thing that strikesfear into the heart of every
gardener I know.
Hail.
It can take a garden fromthriving to completely destroyed
in mere minutes, but sometimesnot all is lost.
(00:27):
It is possible to salvage agarden after a hailstorm.
And in today's episode I'll besharing my personal tips and
experiences from my recent haildestruction.
I'm your host Jill winger.
For the last 10 years I've beenhelping people just like you who
(00:49):
feel uninspired by modern life.
I'll show you how to leave therat race and create the life you
really want by learning how togrow your own food and master
old fashioned skills.
So right off the bat, I have tosay if you're listening to this
episode because your gardenrecently got hailed out, I am so
(01:13):
sorry.
I know the feeling and it is sodevastating to walk out to a
garden or a flower bed thatyou've put so much time into and
seeing it laying there intatters.
Unfortunately I have a lot ofpersonal experience with this.
(01:34):
Very recently.
We've had a really weird yearhere in Wyoming and I think a
lot of areas of the country canprobably relate.
We started off with a very slowspring and even though now at
the time of this recording we'rewell into July, it's still not
super hot, it's cooler temps, alot of rain and the prairie and
(02:01):
all of our plants just took areally long time to take off and
kind of wake up.
So it was a weird start to theyear.
We were gone for a week, the endof June at a family member's
wedding.
When we came back, things hadstarted to awaken, but I had a
lot of weeds to deal with and soI was a little bit frustrated, a
(02:23):
little bit overwhelmed, and Ispent a good couple days out in
my garden just trying to getcaught up.
Raise your hand if you canrelate to the feeling of a
garden getting the best of you.
Sometimes I think I'm there moreoften than not.
Anyway, I spent several days outthere toiling away and finally
(02:44):
got my garden to a point where Iwas really happy with it.
Most of the seeds weregerminating.
We had a little bit of an issuewith some germination rates with
due to the cooler, coldertemperatures, but had seeds
coming up.
My perennials were finallyawakening and I had spent a lot
of time getting all the weedspulled and it was looking pretty
(03:07):
darn good.
So much so that I actuallyposted this really cool picture
on Instagram that afternoonshowing off the garden and
saying that I was really happywith it.
Well, I think I jinxed myself.
It was 6:00 PM that night I waswrapping up supper dishes and I
(03:31):
kinda got that feeling like, oh,it's bedtime for the kids
because it's dark.
And then my brain kicked in andI thought, no, it's really early
in the evening and it's notbedtime.
And then I looked up and realizethe darkness was from this
insane storm cloud to the east.
(03:51):
And every window I looked out ofon that side of the house, it
was pitch black like midnight.
So I grabbed Christian's fireradio cause he's on our
volunteer fire department andbecause we live so far from
anywhere, that's our best bet toget recent weather information,
especially if there's somethingdangerous like a tornado in the
(04:13):
area.
My initial concern was a tornadobecause just two days prior we
had a tornado about a mile fromour house.
Like I told you, it's been aninsane weather a year.
So I started to worry a littlebit about tornadoes.
I went to the windows and lookedoutside and watched in the sky
to see if I could see anyrotation in the clouds.
(04:37):
And I didn't.
It just look like typical stormclouds.
But this darkness was veryrapidly enveloping us and was
planting itself right on top ofthe house.
Only a few minutes into thiswhole realization on my part,
the rain came.
Now we get some pretty intensethunderstorms here.
(04:59):
I'm no stranger to that and I'veseen a lot of rain come down in
a very short amount of time.
But this one was different.
The rain came in completelysideways and the winds I found
out later were 60 to 70 miles anhour.
I had never seen anything likeit.
(05:22):
The only thing I could compareit to are the videos I'd seen on
TV of hurricanes.
Literally it was blowing insideways in sheets.
I started to worry about ourtrees that it would just snap
them right off.
And when I walked around to thefront of the house, I noticed,
(05:43):
or I had to do a double take.
It was like my brain couldn'tprocess what I was seeing
because our trampoline, whichhad been weighted down with
concrete blocks and stakes hadflown up onto our deck and was
hanging from some tall posts wehave on our deck and was
suspended in midair and wrappedaround the posts.
(06:07):
So the kids were pretty bummedabout that, but it was
definitely still too stormy forus to get outside.
So all we could do was just stayin and wait.
The rain lasted for a goodseveral minutes and it continued
to blow in sideways.
And then I heard the tell talepinging of hail on our tin roof
(06:30):
and that's when I knew it wasn'tgoing to be good for the garden.
And the hail continued to comefor several minutes in full
force.
Now, thankfully it wasn't golfball sized hail, it was more
marble size.
But the problem with marble sizehail is it usually comes in
large quantities and with force.
(06:53):
So I watched it in the bedsaround my house and I could see
it building up and just whackingall the plants and my heart
started to sink.
The storm passed and thankfullymy biggest fear was that there
was a tornado in it andultimately that didn't happen,
(07:14):
which I'm very grateful for.
The winds were high and hard,but they were straight winds.
There was no rotation stuffhappening.
It blew over and I got textsfrom friends and neighbors.
Are you okay?
Oh my gosh, that was crazy.
And so we were kind of startingto assess the damage.
(07:34):
We went outside to see how badthe trampoline was and realized
it was a goner.
And I knew I needed to go checkthe garden, but I didn't want to
cause I could see there werepiles of leaves off our trees
laying in the yard and on ourdeck and my potted plants on the
front porch that I had forgottento bring in.
(07:54):
And I always bring them inbefore a storm, but I didn't
this time they were shredded.
So I knew the garden wasprobably not in good shape.
I finally worked up the nerve towalk down to our garden and what
I saw was pretty heartbreaking.
The corn that I had spentseveral hours primping and
mulching that day was broken andcrushed.
(08:19):
The onions who are usuallyreally resilient to hail had
stalks that were just shredded.
My cabbage was up to that point,my favorite bed in the whole
garden because it was full andvibrant and the leaves on the
cabbage plants were gorgeous andnow they were full of holes.
(08:41):
But I think the worst one wasthe tomatoes.
And I had babied these tomatoessince February when I started
them in our basement under growlights.
They are San Marzano's there.
My favorite heirloom saucetomato.
I had watered them every day andtaken care of them.
So we had been together for agood couple months and when I
(09:04):
finally transplanted them, youknow, I had watched them and
they were growing and reallybecoming healthy and vibrant in
the garden and they were justcrushed beyond recognition.
So I cried and I yelled and Itold Christian I was never
gardening here again as long asI lived.
(09:24):
And basically I went back in thehouse and I couldn't even look
at the garden all of that nightand all the next day.
It was just heartbreaking to seeall that work and all that time
and money invested justshattered and it feels senseless
and it just feels like aviolation.
If you've ever had hail hit agarden, you know, and maybe if
(09:46):
you haven't, it sounds like I'mbeing a little dramatic, but
it's just rough to see all yourwork destroyed.
I woke up the next day with alittle bit of an attitude shift.
And what I realized is though,even though I'm still pretty
bummed about my garden and it'sstill pretty sad to go walk
through it, all the time I hadspent up to that point wasn't
(10:11):
wasted because I got a lot ofenjoyment out of it and it was
exercise and I was out in natureand it was calming my brain and
it felt good.
So part of my anger after ithappened was I felt like it was
a waste, but I now realize thatit wasn't, it was all for a
purpose and even though I mightnot get as many vegetables out
(10:32):
of it, I got a lot of otherbenefits.
So that was my attitude shift.
It didn't change the fact that Istill have shredded tomatoes.
The good news is I think that alot of the plants will come
back.
My potatoes and my beets and mycarrots will be fine.
The cabbages still are formingheads, even though the outer
(10:52):
leaves look pretty sad.
And even the tomatoes, there aresome plants I think that are
going to bounce back just fine.
And thankfully I canned a ton oftomato sauce last year so we
have plenty to tide us over.
All that being said, I want toshare a few of the ways I plan
(11:15):
to nurture my garden goingforward from this hail damage.
I've been doing some reading andsome research.
And as far as helping a gardenrecover from hail, it depends on
a couple different factors.
You know obviously how big thehail was, how extensive the
damage was.
And probably the biggest factoris what time in the year or in
(11:36):
the growing season the damageoccurred.
Now like I said, we're in theearly to mid part of our growing
season.
So I had a little bit of timefor recovery.
If this had happened in Augustor late August, it probably
would have been far too gone toeven mess with.
But thankfully I have a littlebit of time.
(11:58):
Here are a few of the things I'mdoing.
And you can do too if you havethis experience of a hailed out
garden.
Number one, if it's happened ata point in the season where you
have vegetables or fruit on yourplants, you want to pick that
right away because as soon asthey get bruised or broken from
(12:19):
hail, they're going to startspoiling pretty rapidly.
So if you can get out there,immediately, pull them off the
vine and then either eat them orfreeze them or process them,
then you're going to have ahigher chance of saving that
fruit or vegetable versusleaving out there.
So that would be number one.
Thankfully at this point, I havenothing growing out there.
(12:39):
No tomatoes, no nothing.
So I didn't have anything toharvest.
Now the other thing that I'mdoing is hard as it is, um, is
to wait.
Your initial gut feeling, I knowthis was what I felt on Saturday
evening when this happened.
I just wanted to get out thereand rip it out because it was
(13:00):
depressing to look at.
It made me sad.
I didn't want a reminder and Ididn't want to look at the
destruction.
So my inclination was to go outthere and just pull out the
damaged plants and call it good.
And so I wouldn't have to lookat it.
But you actually want to holdoff on that urge and wait cause
you might be surprised at howmany plants rebound.
(13:22):
And I know from one other timewe had hail and it caused a lot
of damage in our vegetablegarden.
A lot of things came back andall the supportive, wonderful
messages I've gotten from ourhomestead tribe have further
underscored that that gardensare pretty resilient.
So fight the urge to rip it out,leave it for a while and see
(13:47):
what happens.
Now I honestly just decided totake a couple days away from the
garden cause I just needed amental space from the
destruction.
But I went out there thismorning and it's not as bad.
Like there's definitely damaged.
It's definitely really sad.
But I think a lot of it's goingto come back more than I thought
(14:09):
originally.
So give it some time.
After you have given it thatspace, then you can go in and
start trimming.
But I would advise you to be alittle bit conservative in what
you trim.
Obviously if you have leavesthat are completely broken and
are withering and turning black,you want to trim those away from
(14:32):
the plants.
But just leaves that have holesin them or that are tattered,
it's best if you can leave thoseon.
And I know with a few of myplants that were stripped of a
lot of the leaves, I want tomake sure I can leave as much
leaf on there as possible, evenif it is tattered so the plant
can potentially grow back.
(14:53):
And it is going to take a lot ofwork for the plant to grow back.
So if you can, you want to babyyour garden along at this point.
This is gonna look like givingan extra water if if needed and
just making sure it'ssufficiently damp and you can
also apply some compost tea orsome sort of fertilizer.
(15:16):
And I would do this a little bitdown the road like maybe a
couple of weeks after the hailhits.
I know I'm going to make somesimple compost tea.
I have a recipe on the blog andI'll drop it in the show notes
and I'm gonna just going tospray that on the plants, on the
leaves and around this soil,just to give it a little extra
boost.
It's going to take extra energyand resources from these plants
(15:40):
to regenerate.
I want to give them every chancethey possibly can have.
And then lastly, don't forgetabout replanting.
And again, this is completelydependent on what point of the
season you are in when the hailhits.
But I know, well kind of a goodthing for me is some of my
(16:04):
plants didn't germinate, so Ihad already put some seeds in
the ground last week and thoseseeds haven't come up quite yet.
So that was protected from thehail.
And if it's early enough in theseason, you might be able to
pull out some of the dead plantsand put some new seeds or
seedlings in place.
A little note about hailcoverings or hail protection.
(16:29):
This is the topic I have lookedat a lot over the years because
our area of Wyoming has a lot ofhail.
I'm honestly surprised wehaven't gotten hailed out more
frequently just because we livein an area with very high
occurrence.
Hail covering is something Iabsolutely want to either build
(16:50):
or invest in in the future forus is just figuring out what
type of covering is best.
One idea we've had is to buildhoops or some sort of structure
over our beds and then use hellcloth or hardware cloth on top
just to shield it a little bitand then still letting the sun
(17:11):
get in.
Other options are using thingslike buckets or tubs turned over
and put on plants.
Unfortunately for me, my gardenis big enough that I would need
a ridiculous number of bucketsand tubs to cover the garden so
that's not really feasible.
However, if you have a smallergarden, I mean collect some milk
(17:33):
jugs and cut the bottoms off andget really creative with your
protective stash and you can runout there hopefully if your
home, when hail comes and covereverything before you're hit.
In the past I've also gone outand tried covering things with
sheets or light blankets.
(17:54):
Honestly, I don't know how wellthat works.
You have to be really carefulthat the blankets don't crush
the plants and honestly, withthe way the wind came in with
our storm on Saturday, thoseblankets would have been in
Nebraska and would have doneabsolutely no good, so you could
try it.
I mean it's probably better thannothing, but I wouldn't bank on
(18:16):
the fact that a sheet or ablanket's going to do a whole
lot for your plants.
Here's an idea though thatChristian and I are
brainstorming and we don't knowif it'll work, but I just have
to throw this out there and ifyou've ever seen anything like
this, please drop me a note onFacebook or Instagram.
We had this crazy idea since ourgarden is so large to build some
(18:40):
sort of removable hail nettingand our idea is to get some sort
of steel cable and string itbetween two posts and somehow
we'd have to do something on thesides.
Haven't quite figured that partout.
And then getting some of thatorchard hail netting or hail
cloth.
I've seen it online, I think itexists.
(19:00):
They use it to cover trees andorchards and protect them from
hail and then having it on ringsso we can pull it over the
garden and secure it when weknow a storm is coming and then
when the storm goes away we canpull it back and leave the
garden exposed to the open air.
There's a little bit ofengineering that has to happen
before we start building such athing.
(19:22):
But that's my best option forcovering or my best idea at this
point for covering a largergarden without literally just
like building a hoophouse overthe top of it.
If you have hail experiences orhail covering ideas, I am so
interested in what you have tosay.
(19:43):
Please shoot me a message or anemail or a comment on social
media and I would love to chat.
In a nutshell to wrap it up, ifyou have or when you have rather
cause it's bound to happen atsome point, those
disappointments on yourhomestead journey, whether it's
(20:05):
an animal dying or your gardenbeing shredded by hail or a
recipe, you completely messed upin the kitchen, don't let it
define you.
You have to remember thatfailure is just a part of this
journey and sometimes failuresare things that we can prevent
(20:25):
and sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're completely outof our control.
The only thing we can control isour perspective and the choice
of whether or not we keep going.
And I hope you always choose tokeep going.
And that is it for today, myfriends, I would be so honored
(20:46):
for you to pop over iTunes andleave a quick review if you
enjoyed this show and give it ashare so more people can find
this podcast and bringhomesteading into their lives.
Thank you so much for listeningand I can't wait to catch up
with you on the next episode ofthe old fashioned on purpose
podcast.
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
There's one thing that strikesfear into the heart of every
gardener I know.
Hail.
It can take a garden fromthriving to completely destroyed
in mere minutes, but sometimesnot all is lost.
(00:27):
It is possible to salvage agarden after a hailstorm.
And in today's episode I'll besharing my personal tips and
experiences from my recent haildestruction.
I'm your host Jill winger.
For the last 10 years I've beenhelping people just like you who
(00:49):
feel uninspired by modern life.
I'll show you how to leave therat race and create the life you
really want by learning how togrow your own food and master
old fashioned skills.
So right off the bat, I have tosay if you're listening to this
episode because your gardenrecently got hailed out, I am so
(01:13):
sorry.
I know the feeling and it is sodevastating to walk out to a
garden or a flower bed thatyou've put so much time into and
seeing it laying there intatters.
Unfortunately I have a lot ofpersonal experience with this.
(01:34):
Very recently.
We've had a really weird yearhere in Wyoming and I think a
lot of areas of the country canprobably relate.
We started off with a very slowspring and even though now at
the time of this recording we'rewell into July, it's still not
super hot, it's cooler temps, alot of rain and the prairie and
(02:01):
all of our plants just took areally long time to take off and
kind of wake up.
So it was a weird start to theyear.
We were gone for a week, the endof June at a family member's
wedding.
When we came back, things hadstarted to awaken, but I had a
lot of weeds to deal with and soI was a little bit frustrated, a
(02:23):
little bit overwhelmed, and Ispent a good couple days out in
my garden just trying to getcaught up.
Raise your hand if you canrelate to the feeling of a
garden getting the best of you.
Sometimes I think I'm there moreoften than not.
Anyway, I spent several days outthere toiling away and finally
(02:44):
got my garden to a point where Iwas really happy with it.
Most of the seeds weregerminating.
We had a little bit of an issuewith some germination rates with
due to the cooler, coldertemperatures, but had seeds
coming up.
My perennials were finallyawakening and I had spent a lot
of time getting all the weedspulled and it was looking pretty
(03:07):
darn good.
So much so that I actuallyposted this really cool picture
on Instagram that afternoonshowing off the garden and
saying that I was really happywith it.
Well, I think I jinxed myself.
It was 6:00 PM that night I waswrapping up supper dishes and I
(03:31):
kinda got that feeling like, oh,it's bedtime for the kids
because it's dark.
And then my brain kicked in andI thought, no, it's really early
in the evening and it's notbedtime.
And then I looked up and realizethe darkness was from this
insane storm cloud to the east.
(03:51):
And every window I looked out ofon that side of the house, it
was pitch black like midnight.
So I grabbed Christian's fireradio cause he's on our
volunteer fire department andbecause we live so far from
anywhere, that's our best bet toget recent weather information,
especially if there's somethingdangerous like a tornado in the
(04:13):
area.
My initial concern was a tornadobecause just two days prior we
had a tornado about a mile fromour house.
Like I told you, it's been aninsane weather a year.
So I started to worry a littlebit about tornadoes.
I went to the windows and lookedoutside and watched in the sky
to see if I could see anyrotation in the clouds.
(04:37):
And I didn't.
It just look like typical stormclouds.
But this darkness was veryrapidly enveloping us and was
planting itself right on top ofthe house.
Only a few minutes into thiswhole realization on my part,
the rain came.
Now we get some pretty intensethunderstorms here.
(04:59):
I'm no stranger to that and I'veseen a lot of rain come down in
a very short amount of time.
But this one was different.
The rain came in completelysideways and the winds I found
out later were 60 to 70 miles anhour.
I had never seen anything likeit.
(05:22):
The only thing I could compareit to are the videos I'd seen on
TV of hurricanes.
Literally it was blowing insideways in sheets.
I started to worry about ourtrees that it would just snap
them right off.
And when I walked around to thefront of the house, I noticed,
(05:43):
or I had to do a double take.
It was like my brain couldn'tprocess what I was seeing
because our trampoline, whichhad been weighted down with
concrete blocks and stakes hadflown up onto our deck and was
hanging from some tall posts wehave on our deck and was
suspended in midair and wrappedaround the posts.
(06:07):
So the kids were pretty bummedabout that, but it was
definitely still too stormy forus to get outside.
So all we could do was just stayin and wait.
The rain lasted for a goodseveral minutes and it continued
to blow in sideways.
And then I heard the tell talepinging of hail on our tin roof
(06:30):
and that's when I knew it wasn'tgoing to be good for the garden.
And the hail continued to comefor several minutes in full
force.
Now, thankfully it wasn't golfball sized hail, it was more
marble size.
But the problem with marble sizehail is it usually comes in
large quantities and with force.
(06:53):
So I watched it in the bedsaround my house and I could see
it building up and just whackingall the plants and my heart
started to sink.
The storm passed and thankfullymy biggest fear was that there
was a tornado in it andultimately that didn't happen,
(07:14):
which I'm very grateful for.
The winds were high and hard,but they were straight winds.
There was no rotation stuffhappening.
It blew over and I got textsfrom friends and neighbors.
Are you okay?
Oh my gosh, that was crazy.
And so we were kind of startingto assess the damage.
(07:34):
We went outside to see how badthe trampoline was and realized
it was a goner.
And I knew I needed to go checkthe garden, but I didn't want to
cause I could see there werepiles of leaves off our trees
laying in the yard and on ourdeck and my potted plants on the
front porch that I had forgottento bring in.
(07:54):
And I always bring them inbefore a storm, but I didn't
this time they were shredded.
So I knew the garden wasprobably not in good shape.
I finally worked up the nerve towalk down to our garden and what
I saw was pretty heartbreaking.
The corn that I had spentseveral hours primping and
mulching that day was broken andcrushed.
(08:19):
The onions who are usuallyreally resilient to hail had
stalks that were just shredded.
My cabbage was up to that point,my favorite bed in the whole
garden because it was full andvibrant and the leaves on the
cabbage plants were gorgeous andnow they were full of holes.
(08:41):
But I think the worst one wasthe tomatoes.
And I had babied these tomatoessince February when I started
them in our basement under growlights.
They are San Marzano's there.
My favorite heirloom saucetomato.
I had watered them every day andtaken care of them.
So we had been together for agood couple months and when I
(09:04):
finally transplanted them, youknow, I had watched them and
they were growing and reallybecoming healthy and vibrant in
the garden and they were justcrushed beyond recognition.
So I cried and I yelled and Itold Christian I was never
gardening here again as long asI lived.
(09:24):
And basically I went back in thehouse and I couldn't even look
at the garden all of that nightand all the next day.
It was just heartbreaking to seeall that work and all that time
and money invested justshattered and it feels senseless
and it just feels like aviolation.
If you've ever had hail hit agarden, you know, and maybe if
(09:46):
you haven't, it sounds like I'mbeing a little dramatic, but
it's just rough to see all yourwork destroyed.
I woke up the next day with alittle bit of an attitude shift.
And what I realized is though,even though I'm still pretty
bummed about my garden and it'sstill pretty sad to go walk
through it, all the time I hadspent up to that point wasn't
(10:11):
wasted because I got a lot ofenjoyment out of it and it was
exercise and I was out in natureand it was calming my brain and
it felt good.
So part of my anger after ithappened was I felt like it was
a waste, but I now realize thatit wasn't, it was all for a
purpose and even though I mightnot get as many vegetables out
(10:32):
of it, I got a lot of otherbenefits.
So that was my attitude shift.
It didn't change the fact that Istill have shredded tomatoes.
The good news is I think that alot of the plants will come
back.
My potatoes and my beets and mycarrots will be fine.
The cabbages still are formingheads, even though the outer
(10:52):
leaves look pretty sad.
And even the tomatoes, there aresome plants I think that are
going to bounce back just fine.
And thankfully I canned a ton oftomato sauce last year so we
have plenty to tide us over.
All that being said, I want toshare a few of the ways I plan
(11:15):
to nurture my garden goingforward from this hail damage.
I've been doing some reading andsome research.
And as far as helping a gardenrecover from hail, it depends on
a couple different factors.
You know obviously how big thehail was, how extensive the
damage was.
And probably the biggest factoris what time in the year or in
(11:36):
the growing season the damageoccurred.
Now like I said, we're in theearly to mid part of our growing
season.
So I had a little bit of timefor recovery.
If this had happened in Augustor late August, it probably
would have been far too gone toeven mess with.
But thankfully I have a littlebit of time.
(11:58):
Here are a few of the things I'mdoing.
And you can do too if you havethis experience of a hailed out
garden.
Number one, if it's happened ata point in the season where you
have vegetables or fruit on yourplants, you want to pick that
right away because as soon asthey get bruised or broken from
(12:19):
hail, they're going to startspoiling pretty rapidly.
So if you can get out there,immediately, pull them off the
vine and then either eat them orfreeze them or process them,
then you're going to have ahigher chance of saving that
fruit or vegetable versusleaving out there.
So that would be number one.
Thankfully at this point, I havenothing growing out there.
(12:39):
No tomatoes, no nothing.
So I didn't have anything toharvest.
Now the other thing that I'mdoing is hard as it is, um, is
to wait.
Your initial gut feeling, I knowthis was what I felt on Saturday
evening when this happened.
I just wanted to get out thereand rip it out because it was
(13:00):
depressing to look at.
It made me sad.
I didn't want a reminder and Ididn't want to look at the
destruction.
So my inclination was to go outthere and just pull out the
damaged plants and call it good.
And so I wouldn't have to lookat it.
But you actually want to holdoff on that urge and wait cause
you might be surprised at howmany plants rebound.
(13:22):
And I know from one other timewe had hail and it caused a lot
of damage in our vegetablegarden.
A lot of things came back andall the supportive, wonderful
messages I've gotten from ourhomestead tribe have further
underscored that that gardensare pretty resilient.
So fight the urge to rip it out,leave it for a while and see
(13:47):
what happens.
Now I honestly just decided totake a couple days away from the
garden cause I just needed amental space from the
destruction.
But I went out there thismorning and it's not as bad.
Like there's definitely damaged.
It's definitely really sad.
But I think a lot of it's goingto come back more than I thought
(14:09):
originally.
So give it some time.
After you have given it thatspace, then you can go in and
start trimming.
But I would advise you to be alittle bit conservative in what
you trim.
Obviously if you have leavesthat are completely broken and
are withering and turning black,you want to trim those away from
(14:32):
the plants.
But just leaves that have holesin them or that are tattered,
it's best if you can leave thoseon.
And I know with a few of myplants that were stripped of a
lot of the leaves, I want tomake sure I can leave as much
leaf on there as possible, evenif it is tattered so the plant
can potentially grow back.
(14:53):
And it is going to take a lot ofwork for the plant to grow back.
So if you can, you want to babyyour garden along at this point.
This is gonna look like givingan extra water if if needed and
just making sure it'ssufficiently damp and you can
also apply some compost tea orsome sort of fertilizer.
(15:16):
And I would do this a little bitdown the road like maybe a
couple of weeks after the hailhits.
I know I'm going to make somesimple compost tea.
I have a recipe on the blog andI'll drop it in the show notes
and I'm gonna just going tospray that on the plants, on the
leaves and around this soil,just to give it a little extra
boost.
It's going to take extra energyand resources from these plants
(15:40):
to regenerate.
I want to give them every chancethey possibly can have.
And then lastly, don't forgetabout replanting.
And again, this is completelydependent on what point of the
season you are in when the hailhits.
But I know, well kind of a goodthing for me is some of my
(16:04):
plants didn't germinate, so Ihad already put some seeds in
the ground last week and thoseseeds haven't come up quite yet.
So that was protected from thehail.
And if it's early enough in theseason, you might be able to
pull out some of the dead plantsand put some new seeds or
seedlings in place.
A little note about hailcoverings or hail protection.
(16:29):
This is the topic I have lookedat a lot over the years because
our area of Wyoming has a lot ofhail.
I'm honestly surprised wehaven't gotten hailed out more
frequently just because we livein an area with very high
occurrence.
Hail covering is something Iabsolutely want to either build
(16:50):
or invest in in the future forus is just figuring out what
type of covering is best.
One idea we've had is to buildhoops or some sort of structure
over our beds and then use hellcloth or hardware cloth on top
just to shield it a little bitand then still letting the sun
(17:11):
get in.
Other options are using thingslike buckets or tubs turned over
and put on plants.
Unfortunately for me, my gardenis big enough that I would need
a ridiculous number of bucketsand tubs to cover the garden so
that's not really feasible.
However, if you have a smallergarden, I mean collect some milk
(17:33):
jugs and cut the bottoms off andget really creative with your
protective stash and you can runout there hopefully if your
home, when hail comes and covereverything before you're hit.
In the past I've also gone outand tried covering things with
sheets or light blankets.
(17:54):
Honestly, I don't know how wellthat works.
You have to be really carefulthat the blankets don't crush
the plants and honestly, withthe way the wind came in with
our storm on Saturday, thoseblankets would have been in
Nebraska and would have doneabsolutely no good, so you could
try it.
I mean it's probably better thannothing, but I wouldn't bank on
(18:16):
the fact that a sheet or ablanket's going to do a whole
lot for your plants.
Here's an idea though thatChristian and I are
brainstorming and we don't knowif it'll work, but I just have
to throw this out there and ifyou've ever seen anything like
this, please drop me a note onFacebook or Instagram.
We had this crazy idea since ourgarden is so large to build some
(18:40):
sort of removable hail nettingand our idea is to get some sort
of steel cable and string itbetween two posts and somehow
we'd have to do something on thesides.
Haven't quite figured that partout.
And then getting some of thatorchard hail netting or hail
cloth.
I've seen it online, I think itexists.
(19:00):
They use it to cover trees andorchards and protect them from
hail and then having it on ringsso we can pull it over the
garden and secure it when weknow a storm is coming and then
when the storm goes away we canpull it back and leave the
garden exposed to the open air.
There's a little bit ofengineering that has to happen
before we start building such athing.
(19:22):
But that's my best option forcovering or my best idea at this
point for covering a largergarden without literally just
like building a hoophouse overthe top of it.
If you have hail experiences orhail covering ideas, I am so
interested in what you have tosay.
(19:43):
Please shoot me a message or anemail or a comment on social
media and I would love to chat.
In a nutshell to wrap it up, ifyou have or when you have rather
cause it's bound to happen atsome point, those
disappointments on yourhomestead journey, whether it's
(20:05):
an animal dying or your gardenbeing shredded by hail or a
recipe, you completely messed upin the kitchen, don't let it
define you.
You have to remember thatfailure is just a part of this
journey and sometimes failuresare things that we can prevent
(20:25):
and sometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're completely outof our control.
The only thing we can control isour perspective and the choice
of whether or not we keep going.
And I hope you always choose tokeep going.
And that is it for today, myfriends, I would be so honored
(20:46):
for you to pop over iTunes andleave a quick review if you
enjoyed this show and give it ashare so more people can find
this podcast and bringhomesteading into their lives.
Thank you so much for listeningand I can't wait to catch up
with you on the next episode ofthe old fashioned on purpose
podcast.
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