Garden Update

A few days after the hail storm and the garden looks quite a bit better. The good news first!

The sweet potatoes weren’t affected at all. You’d think with their bigger, thick leaves, they would have had some damage but they don’t. 

The pumpkins seem hardly affected. Pictured above are pie pumpkins but there are also jack-o-lantern (larger) pumpkins, Seminole pumpkins and Georgia Candy Roasters planted and they all seem to be doing well.

The yacon that I transplanted is sprouting nicely and even what was already up did not seem to get damaged.

There’s some halfway good news.

Though the lemon squash was badly damaged, it seems to be perking up. The baby squash that I had hoped to be ready for picking this weekend . . it was all either knocked off the plant or damaged by the hail so that I had to remove it. Not knowing how the squash would do, I planted some yellow crookneck and zucchini the day after the storm and it has already sprouted. The ground was warm and moist and that helped.

The potato tops are pretty much all broken out and in their damaged state, they’re going to be very susceptible to the potato beetle so as soon as it dries up a bit, I’ll dig the potatoes and get rid of those vines. The good news of this is that there are quite a few potatoes already so at least I got something.

The artichoke above is one from last year after Vince had pulled them all up and I guess the roots to one remained enough that it sprouted. I had planted more and I think 12 of them were up but only 6 made it through the storm. The good news is that I found a partial packet of seeds (in my bathroom vanity of all places) and I’ll replant those  today.

And finally, the sad news . .

The peppers just aren’t going to make it. I struggle to grow them here anyway but with them being damaged, bugs are going to devour them. Yesterday we went to the garden center but they’re pretty much out of plants and had no bell peppers. Walmart had some so I bought 5 more and will plant those hopefully this week if we have some dry days.

My beloved tomatoes! They’re all pretty damaged and here, a healthy plant struggles in the heat and with the bugs. The plants that looked so bad Wednesday morning are looking a bit better now but at least half the plants have shriveled up. I started with about 40 and probably have about 20 that are gone for good, another 5 that are pretty “iffy” and maybe 15 that I’m pretty sure will be ok. 15 tomato plants isn’t bad . . I wish there were more but I’m happy to have those.

The peas . . I garden for tomatoes and peas. The cream peas must be more tender than the rest. They aren’t going to make it. They lost so many leaves and are starting to shrivel up. Instead of leaving them there to invite bugs in, I’m going to go ahead and pull them all out.

The anasazi beans are looking a bit better . . they will probably make it. The big butter beans . . the jury is still out. They don’t look great but they aren’t shriveling up. 

I’m lucky that we have a week of rainy, cloudy days predicted. I think the hot sun blazing down on the damaged leaves might be more than they could all bear right now. By this time next week, I’ll know a whole lot more about whether the iffy plants are going to make it.

At least everything wasn’t lost and even though I probably won’t get enough tomatoes to do much canning, I’ll surely have enough to enjoy fresh throughout the summer.