If you play Monopoly, you understand the title of my blog post. If you aren't a player of Monopoly, let me explain. Last Wednesday, around 4:30, the clouds started rolling in and the thunder rolled. The children and I all prayed that we would get some rain on the farm. Our soil was so dry and we were constantly running the irrigation lines to the garden beds and overhead sprinklers.
Severely dry ground in desperate need of moisture.
A customer arrived to pick up her produce and we were aware that the storms were to the south of us with some strong wind and hail reported. We laughed and hoped that the severe weather would miss us and just a little rain would be awesome. Well, we got the rain. Lots of rain. We also got the severe weather. Once the skies opened up it didn't stop raining for nearly six hours. In those six hours we received six inches of heavy, downpour rain, 70 mph winds, and pea to nickel sized hail.
East plots. Green Beans at the top of the picture near the trees and the other beds were being prepped to plant winter squashes and melons.
Tomatoes in standing water
Our garden plots suffered severe damage. We lost a majority of our crops and those that weren't destroyed completely, are most definitely damaged extensively. I walked the garden plots during the storm, the morning after, and then again the following day. Our initial walk through of the gardens consisted of ankle deep water and some hail damage to our leafy greens. The following morning, with further inspection, we realized the damage was much greater. Our tomatoes had the growth tips of their vines snapped off. Peppers were stripped of all of their leaves, summer squash vines snapped and lots of damage to leaves, young melon plants with their leaves completely pulverized, and our cucumber plants completely gone! Our plastic mulch that we use for many of our vegetables had numerous dents and holes from the pounding hail.
Shredded Red Mustard
Snapped tomato vines
Zucchini vines snapped and bent over, shredded leaves, and dents in the plastic mulch from hail.
So, how does Monopoly relate to Serenity Farm? Well, we get to start over from scratch. We fortunately have some seed available to replant. We can replant our cucumbers, melons, summer squash, winter squash, green beans, okra, and a few other vegetables. It's too late in the season to do anything about our peppers, eggplants, or tomatoes. Our high tunnel did survive the storm (with the same dents and holes as the plastic mulch) and we have around 300 tomato vines in there that are starting to produce tomatoes! We have had a few customers ask what they can do to help. Well, prayers are always great, but we also could use the help to replant. If you are at all interested in coming out to put a few seeds in the ground or pull some weeds that are taking over, we would love the help! Early mornings or early to late evenings (7-9pm) are the best since it's not as HOT outside! Bring your kiddos out and our kiddos can show them all the vegetables, gardens, pond, and more.
To all of our CSA members...thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your thoughts and prayers and for being so understanding. We know that acts of God can overwhelm the best laid plans. We will finish the 2016 season, with less than we had hoped, but as you get to know us you will find that we are not a family that gives up easily and we persevere through all obstacles and challenges that we face.
Blessings to all of you!
Until next time,
Tiff
Until next time,
Tiff
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