Hailstorm

All of my battered plants are wrapped in freeze blankets or covered in buckets for the next few days. Our bewilderingly early spring finally gave way to an onslaught of damaging weather. It seemed to come out of nowhere.

I expect weather and other miscellaneous factors to threaten my garden, and I work with them as best I can. Sleet, ice and snow. Torrential, drown-every-seed-in-sight-for-days-on-end rain. Blazing heat. Bugs of all stripes. Birds (that sing so beautifully in the morning I forgive their occasional berry theft). Exuberant kids that only occasionally forget to watch where they're stepping.

But the onslaught of hail that came down not once, but TWICE in a span of four hours was a first for me. I've never seen hail like this. It mercilessly butchered all of the beauty I've so carefully cultivated, much of it beyond recovery.

My first concern is always the asparagus. It's been such a labor of love and patience to wait for this year's harvest, and the thought of losing it all is unbearable. The harvestable stalks were beheaded and broken, but I'm counting on the crowns themselves being undamaged and continuing to produce.

                                                                       

My grow bags of onions looked like ice buckets. I gathered up the broken stems and mourned the damage. But I'm hopeful the onions will also survive.

I began planning last year for a grape arbor, and this year finally ordered two grapevines. Hope and Gratitude. I planted them reverently, praying for the covering of hope and gratitude at our gates, for these blessings to root deeply and spread wide in us.

I almost panicked when I saw this. 

They're only plants, I know. I can and will replant where I need to. But losses are still losses, and I've invested heavily here. 

Potatoes before

Potatoes after

I successfully grew all of my peppers from seed this year, four different heirloom varieties. Savagely pummeled and sitting in an ice box, they're a total loss, along with the quinoa. Next year I'll know to start back-up sets a few weeks after the first.

This was also my first year for strawberries, following two seasons of dreaming and planning. I planted them all over the place - under a tree, in front of the asparagus bed, beside the blackberries. I even planted some in my neighbor's yard, built a makeshift strawberry tower, and finally gave away handfuls of plants that I simply couldn't house. 

The ones I planted under the tree seemed to be saying "What happened to all of you?!" 

By some miracle, the vast majority of the strawberry plants seem to be pulling through. I think it was in one of Gayla Trail's books that I came across the encouragement that plants want to grow. Over and over again, I see how true that is.

I noticed this tulip a few minutes ago on my way to check on the strawberries,
and it took my breath away. 

So I've decide to embrace hope and gratitude again. Hail is one more setback I'll have learned to weather. Gardening has many lessons to teach, and I've been focused on Patience for many seasons. I hadn't considered Resilience and her close friend Determination until now, and I suppose it's about time I did.

In memory of the beautiful things I grew once and will grow again...

After I published this post, I realized that I'd made no mention of my tomatoes. I think it was a subconscious denial about their loss... I love growing tomatoes from seed. Tomatoes are the one plant I've successfully grown every year since I began gardening. Because I've always had so many tomatoes left over, I started fewer this year and was very selective about the ones I planted. Quality over quantity. Which means I had much more to lose and did. I'm still debating if I'm going to nurse the few broken survivors, or kiss them goodbye and replant with store-bought plants. I'll probably choose a little of both in the end.