garden is toast

[Stacy]

Well, my sq. foot garden is still ok. BUT Mike's garden is now officially mostly toast. We had a storm this evening around 6 pm. It blew our neighbors new trampoline across the corn, breaking nearly every single one, smashed a few tomatoes and landed in the woodline. I kept looking to see if I'd see bouncing cows.. since they were busily checking it out in their field. Then one of the neighbors two metal sheds went ahead and took out most of the rest of the tomatoes. They were all finally starting to look better too. <sigh> Their shed also took out part of our cow field fencing, but Mike got that fixed pretty quick, thanks to us still having extra posts we got from Ellen before she moved to TX. The other neighbors' metal shed took out some fencing clear in the back, from three houses away! But that didn't hit the garden. The tree that the snakes always mated in was also snapped in half, I'm glad though! They chased our nice garden honey bees outta the hive that was up there a couple of years ago anyway.
So, tomorrow, we're going to go out and see what's left, if anything, of the tomato plants, and then till in the spot where the beans didn't grow well anyway and start replanting. This year would've been the first year my tomatoes and peppers were both ready at the same time (we looooove salsa). Ahh.. mother nature conspires against us!!!!
It could've been worse I guess. We will be calling the ins. co. tomorrow about the huge amount of roof tiles we've now lost as well. Hopefully, that'll be covered! I hope the neighbor is able to recover some of her lost funds. They don't have a lot of money either and to have lost both sheds and the brand new trampoline totally stinks!!!!!

Do y'all think it's too late for us to replant tomatoes again?

[Lesli]

Here we plant our fall tomatoes about July 15, so maybe you can do some more by then? I inquired about some large tomato- plants the other day and seems no one has them right now because it is too late for spring and too early for fall. My dh bought a whole six pack of itty-bitty cherry tomatoes. They get ripe when they are anywhere from the size of your finger nail on your pinky or if they get big they are as large as your thumbnail. well he thought he was doing a good thing and the lady at the nursery saw him coming and saw sucker written on his forehead. He told her we wanted to make salsa, she wanted to sell what ever she had too many of apparently. I have a few large tomatoes but they only seem to ripen one at a time and you can't make salsa out of microscopic tomatoes!!

[chaparra72]

Stacy, I am so sorry to hear that that has happened! and I for the family who lost so much.

Here in western Wyoming, I haven't even been able to plant anything yet, if that makes you feel better. The lilacs havent bloomed yet! It has only been since last week that the trees have stared to leaf out. We have had a very slow and cold spring, it will be in the 20's tonight, if not colder.

With weather like this, we for sure will not have much of a garden this year.

[Heidi]

Hooly Dooley and you were worried about killing Mike's garden with pig poo! Sometimes you just can't catch a break can you? Sorry to hear about it all, I had been following its progress too. If you should catch the cows on the trampoline that would almost make up for it!
Heidi

[Tammy]

I am so sorry, Stacy. That just really stinks. It's a tough year weather-wise for some many folks.

Can you plant some tomatoes in containers that you could move in side when it starts to frost? My grandpa use to do that in Alaska where it's impossible to plant tomatoes unless one has a green house. He would put them in big pots or five gallon buckets and when it started getting cold, move them into the garage for the n ight and back out during the day when it was warmer. I think you would be all right to plant some more tomatoes in the ground as well.

[ellie]

I'm near you. It is not too late to replant tomatoes.

[Jenn]

In my experience, planting now will get you a crop only slightly later than planting early....they will grow faster....and bypass a lot of the bug cycles as well. The tomato plants can grow from the existing ones...just trim off the broken parts.

-Jenn

[Dianne Ader]

I am sorry! All that work & money into the garden!
But, I sort of remember you saying that these two gardens were competition gardens...?
I will wait for your answer...then I might respond to your next message....
I am sorry,
Dianne

[Janene]

Yes, trim off the broken parts, they'll keep on growing!
I know it has to be a bummer though!
Janene

[Stacy]

Oh I took off all that was broken. These plants were struggling anyway. Well, the corn wasn't. It was actually doing well. We'd even said we won't plant any more corn as we stink at it... so when it was doing so well.. we were excited. Good news is, the cows LOVE the young, tender corn stalks. LOL! I gotta laugh, or there's no point to all this. We're going to leave what's left of the tomato plants there and alone for now. I so desperately wanted those stinkin' polish paste tomatoes! so maybe they'll come back. I did sneak three of them outside in a lousy planter!

The cows never did bounce on the trampoline. It was removed pretty quickly, as there was so many little metal parts I didn't want them eating! We've called the ins. folks to come out and look at the roof on the house (I think I forgot to mention that earlier!!! we lost a LOT of tiles on the roof and have cute lil' tarps now covering holes), I'm hoping they will also consider the two grills we lost as well, but I don't know if ins. does that?

Oh anyway, I just today went and got more tomato plants. One is called a ghost white? Then about 12 are mortgage lifters and five are lemon boys. I don't think they are all heirloom, but right now I don't care much. I took what was biggest and had the strongest stems. The local hardware store/nursery had some decent sized plants, considering.

We don't seem to have a fall planting season here, Lesli, for tomatoes that is. They do plant in broc. and collards though for fall/winter. I have one cherokee purple tomato plant out front in my sq. foot garden. (THE SQ. FOOT GARDEN IS DOING GREAT AND NOW I REALLY FEEL LIKE I'M CHEATING AGAINST MIKE JUST NOT ON PURPOSE! ARRGGGHHH!).

Tammy, I think I might take that idea and run with it a bit! They do have those big plastic buckets at wally world for $5 or something! You know, with the handles on them? I could at least put a couple in those!

As for the competition, I don't know if my pig poop ideas and the weather should be held against Mike. I'm totally blasting by him on this if it did!

I appreciate all the answers. After conferring with his "boss" at work, they are both thinking it was a really fast, minor touch down of a tornado. It seems to just be about our six houses that got affected. We lost some roofing, sheds and gardens. One person lost a trailer that went end over end to three more houses down and broke in half. It went the opposite direction of these sheds we got hit with... thank goodness! Oh yeah, there's a bunch of broken trees too in the space of six homes.

I'm not tryin' to complain... It could've been a lot worse! And maybe Mike will still outshine me, it'll just make him "think" harder about how to do that!

[Stacy]

And Sharon, I hope that you get SOME garden this year. It's certainly been strange weather this year all the way around!

[Dianne Ader]

Stacy....I am very sorry about that bad weather destroying everything...I loved your idea about the competition garden....Too bad it couldn't have been a great year with out the weather problems & then we could have really celebrated with the winner! You never know...we still have a long ways till fall if summer would ever get here! On your mark get set GROW gardens....
Dianne

[Stacy]

Summer's here for us, and has been. It's nearly 100 out now. <sigh> Sucks for being outside replanting! LOL!

[Dianne Ader]

We live in Washington state & I believe we had one day that the temp at our home go to 80 deg. the rest of the time it is like today...57-62 deg for the high & at night it is 47 deg at night...I am glad it is not colder than that! It is terrible to be out planting in 100 deg.

[Stacy]

Oh hey Jenn! I got the same info at the hardware store you gave... basically I might end up with a better crop (Ok, MIKE will) planting them late, due to missing some possible bug action! YAY! Something to look forward to!?

[Stacy]

I'm going to go out and take pics of what's what out there and show y'all, even though it's pretty embarassing to call it our "garden" at this point. I'll take pics of the replacements and what I've got going on out front too.
I was mistaken too, about what I got earlier. Three replacements are called "super sonic", six are mortgage lifters, five are yellow boys and one is the ghost white. Anyway, I'll be back with pictures. DON'T LAUGH! HEHEHEHE...

[Stacy]

Well, it really IS embarrassing at this point! It looks even more pitiful than I thought and that's due to just being a bad year (my pig poop issues???).

Here's the corn.




Here's some of the cukes, they are sorta kinda covered in mud due to them falling over and getting squashed in.



tomatoes




We tried to up them back up as well as we could and snapped off all the broken pieces that were too gone to save.





Mike's not happy. You can see clear off past his elbow to the left side, the camper that went flying, it's on it's side, and then to his right, you can see the one shed and the trampoline that was dragged back over to their yard.



camper again


More tomatoes



Meanwhile, the kids garden is doing great (we weeded right after we took these pictures... we made them help too!!!). They picked out their own plants to grow.



The roof of the "chick" pen.



And my garden out front, virtually untouched.

[kristi]

I'm sorry to hear this but so thankful no one was hurt with all that heavy material flying around! It's super sweet of you to be so concerned about Mikes' garden despite your competition. That's love for ya! The last pic you have of the raised bed with the blocks are what I want to do next year. Someone up town has 3 pallets and I want them! They were left over from a building project. I just need to find out who owns them (long story). Do you like this method of edging? Is there anything you would change? I was thinking of making mine taller by another row so it would be easier to sit on the edge and be kinder to the back and knees.

Thanks,
Kristi

[Stacy]

I love 'em Kristi. Matter of fact, the last couple of days, Mike and I have been putting our chairs out in front of this little garden and talking. Mostly about possibly making another 10 or so of these next year. I like the bricks because I was able to use the outsides for the strawberry plants and flowers. I imagine it could be used for any number of diff. plantings however.
The only thing I WOULD change is going taller. BUT after putting all the required soil (and them some) items to grow in this, it'd be awfully expensive to do it that way. The peat moss is cheap, the vermiculite is NOT! The other stuff (heck if I can remember the name of that just now), was decently priced, but not for a bunch of these gardens, and not for double the height.
Let me tell you though, the other smaller garden in the pic above the brick one? It's got VERY cheap planting soil in it. I got it on super discount. I think because it was "last years". It was an organic potting soil, sold at Lowe's. It seems to be doing just as well, if not better, than the soil I'm using in the sq. foot garden. BUT I do have diff. things planted in it. Things I'm not constantly rotating. I'm also using a store fertilizer every three weeks for both gardens, Miracle Grow right now.
Let me say, those $10 chairs from Walmart that open up? Those bring you right down to the level of this garden, no knees needed, the back is bent some the further in you reach, but all in all, it's not bad. I wouldn't change it to just four by four as is recommended either. It's cheaper with less bricks this way, and seems to be just as easy to access as it would've been otherwise, I think.
Mike and I really, seriously considering adding more. However, right now, his work future is up in the air, as is our place of living. IF he makes chief, we may have to move again, IF he doesn't, we may only be here another year and a half, if he can't find a local job anyway. So honestly, I just don't know if we'll build more where we are, but wherever we go, we WILL have some more of these gardens. I'm really in love with them now that I've gotten to have them.