Good morning! Welcome to Morning Chat for June 20, 2022!

humbling hailstorm

Few things put a gardener of any experience level, into a tizzy. Late or early frosts can cause major problems, grasshoppers love to eat everything, but on the top of my dislike list for gardening comes from above, in the form of little ice balls...hail! I can imagine if you mention hail to any gardener – or farmer, you will get negative responses back.

Thats what we had this weekend. We had heard that there was a chance and kept a watchful eye.

We were in our backyard and were finishing cleaning up our shed, we had been hearing the rumble of thunder on the mountains but had yet to see anything, the storm seemed to have been working it’s way up the valley cuddled close to the mountains. Above the clouds quickly moved in overhead while we were getting everything back in, and I heard 1 clink – I told my husband in a very hurried voice ‘that’s hail’ and made a mad dash across the yard to grab the covers that I had just taken out of buckets less then 10 minutes earlier.

The hail lasted about 10 minutes. That entire time my husband and I were outside covering. I am glad we did. Where our neighbors had little damage due to a very large tree near their garden that took the brunt of it, the majority of our garden is in an open area, with very little cover. We could have lost almost everything if we hadn’t got it covered. As it was, we lost 2 plants, a winter squash and a tomato. Many other plants have quite a bit of damage, but they should be fine. As for my husband and I – we looked like drowned rats. The hail had come with heavy rain which made both of us soaked thru and thru (I think I would have been dryer if I jumped in the river). When changing into dry clothes we also noticed that we were polka dotted on our backs and arms. The hail had definitely left its impression on us.

After changing into dry clothes, I went back out to survey the damage, and noticed the size of the hailstones. The largest we found were quarter sized (luckily there wasn’t many of them!). The one above, was the size of a nickel, after about half an hour.

I guess the crazy thing is that just that morning I was checking the garden and noting how well it was doing. I guess God really knows how to humble you.

–Dawn