My Poor Garden

We had hail storm here on Thursday. A very strange thing in the Ozarks in July. My garden took a massive beating. The tomatoes were jerked half out of the ground and thrown down, cages and all; my squash was--well--squashed; my green beans flat, and the cantalope seedlings were in shreds. Sam's poor, poor sun flowers, which were doing poorly anyway because of all the rain (no sun for the sunflowers), look done for.

He's asking if he can plant a rose bush instead. I've said yes, of course, but at the rate we're going, I'm wondering if turning him on to gardening was a good idea.

Half in tears, after the storm, I went out and propped the tomato plants back up, spoke to them soothingly, but I did little else. It's been so wet the last couple of days that I've not wanted to disturb the rest of the plants for fear that handling them or moving vines will cause more damage. Tomorrow I'll weed some and take more careful stock of what what will and won't survive. As of this evening, it's all still quite green, though the tomatoes (my favorite plant to grow) look a bit shocky. It's not too late to replant the squash, but it's too late in the growing season to start tomatoes and one just makes me sick.

While walking yesterday, I looked hard at my neighbor's big, beautiful garden (She has a prime location in a big sunny flat spot and enough funds to invest in expensive gardening equipment and I've been jealously admiring her work for two months). Her garden looks just great. Not a broken plant in sight.

I think all the hail fell at my house.

Life is not fair sometimes.