Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Steveharford on August 22, 2015, 20:09
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I love a good thunder storm and my god we just had one. Unfortunately it came with what must have been a tornado as my greenhouse has landed in my neighbours drive, the second one is shredded, a tree has now blocked our entrance gate, the gazebo is just no more, every runner bean and its cane is flat on the floor, and I've just picked up some pots of jalapeños which my neighbour kindly picked up from his drive.And my nicely dried onions are now soaked. So. No more tomatoes, or beans for us. Not sure I will bother next year to be honest. Devastated:-(
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Oh Steve that is such rotten luck.
Not surprised you are devastated.
Give it a little while tho' and you may feel differently about next year.
Once next years seed catalogues come through the letter box you might get your enthusiasm back.
X
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Those seed catalogues have a lot to answer for. :)
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Awww Steve, so sorry to hear that. You are a gardener, you will pick yourself up again I'm sure, but I'm not surprised you are devastated after losing everything!
But as long as you and your family are okay, that's more important! xxxxxx
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That is devastating :( I hope you can salvage something, but it must feel rotten right now :(
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Count this year as a right off. :( Give it a bit of time before you make any decisions about giving up. They are only things and plants. You have not lost anyone dear to you and material possessions can be replaced. Don't let the weather beat you and if you decide to have another go, just produce veggies that don't need molly coddling in a greenhouse. Grown short veggies. Even runner beans have a short cousin. Use this forum for help to grow things in difficult conditions. And take heart that we are here to help you with our ideas and experiences.
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That must be heartbreaking, Steve. Do you often get bad storms? I found this on Wikipedia that sounds similar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Malvern_tornado_of_1761
Best of luck with the clear-up. It must be depressing looking at all your lovingly tended plants smashed in next to no time after all your efforts.
We've had strange weather this year that left me feeling similarly devastated in early spring. We've lost just about all our fruit and nut trees and my vegetable patch was rendered unusable. I'm in a lucky position that we have other land I could turn over to a small veg patch. I have to say that the changes I've had to deal with have made me rethink a lot of my earlier ideas. It sounds a bit trite to mention the Chinese thing about crisis and opportunity being the same. But it has been the case for me. I am sure that it could be the same for you.
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Flipping heck, Steve! :ohmy: I am so sorry but, as said, the main thing is that you are ok. Things can be put right in time for next year so don't you dare give up or GG will wing-slap you! I'm going to take a punt and say that your onions will dry out ok as it's all about drying out the water in the skins not what's fallen on them, and it's just possible that some other things may recover - I hope so anyway. Please let us know how you get on. xxx
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Heavens! You really did catch it!! :ohmy: House all right - the roof tiles didnt follow the greenhouse?
Runners are tough things - stand the canes up again (if they arent snapped at the base) and chances are they will keep going.
But otherwise, take your time, tidy up and as snoop says, have a think. Bearing in mind that a wind like that in August is sooooo not normal! In Malvern!!
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Thanks everyone. Clear up almost complete.Now rained off. Managed to salvage a couple of chillies and jalapeños. And my few outside tomatoes against the house wall survived the full onslaught. Strange. I have yet to face the runner beans but will need wife's help when she gets back from work and it might just be worth trying to upright them and maybe a couple might be intact. But they are completely and utterly flat but you never know. One silver lining of that unbelievable cloud is that I have acquired some very nice bullace smoking wood :-).
Thanks again everyone for your very kind thoughts. I need a snooze.
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To be fair I don't think my lovely gazebo stood a chance against what was coming.
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Sorry to hear that Steve, and just glad no one was hurt whilst it was all flying around. I'm with GG that the onions will be fine once they've dried off again, and not to give up! It sounds like a freak event, so hopefully once the damage is cleared up you'll feel better. Best regards, G&R
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To be fair I don't think my lovely gazebo stood a chance against what was coming.
Oh dear, it didn't stand a chance did it? You are quite open there too.
But look on the bright side, you are upright and OK.
And in time, when the memory has faded and the sun shines you may feel like planting again.
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Steve really sad to hear that you have been affected so badly but hey! Chin up and dig in, its the gardeners way. Besides I am getting you a batch of seed read so hope you take this hit and rebound as keen as ever!
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My turn now...
Having managed to pick myself up after flooding in the spring and starting again, I'm back to less than square one. I've just been down to have a look at my veg patch. It's totally and utterly shredded. All I'll be able to salvage is maybe a few cabbages, if that.
But I wasn't surprised at what I saw. We've just had an almighty hailstorm with hailstones getting on for the size of golf balls followed by pounding rain. It went on for ages. We were expecting a storm from the state of the clouds, but not as bad as this. In preparation we had both car windscreens covered up with two layers of carpet and blanket. Both bust. You can imagine what the bonnets look like. Our skylights in the bathroom and kitchen have gone the same way.
The dogs were indoors but terrified. The cats were all out. One has just turned up and I hope the other two managed to find somewhere to take shelter. Under a tree wouldn't have done as they've suffered a lot of damage too, and the ground is littered with leaf matter, twigs and small branches. The chickens are all traumatised but glad of some of the damaged tomatoes to cheer them up. I think there are about three tomatoes left for us. No peppers, no aubergines, no sweetcorn, no courgettes, no green beans, no broccoli, no caulis, no carrots, no melons, no squash. Pretty well no nothing apart from the potatoes underground. The haulms are totally ruined.
Very sad about the veg patch as it gave me a lot of pleasure and it's what keeps us fed during the winter when we get cut off by rain and snow. Not this year, evidently. Better get lots of tinned peas and green beans in!
Unbelievably, the solar panels look to be still intact. We'll find out for sure if they're working tomorrow when the sun comes up.
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That's really hard to bear Snoop :(
Hope the cats turn up unharmed and fingers crossed for the panels.
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Oh Snoop, what an awful thing to happen :(
Like MoS, I hope your cats come home soon and your solar panels are OK.
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Oh dear Snoop, that's really dreadful. Hope the cats are ok. My car got written off a couple of years ago when we had a hailstorm of those proportions, all the greenhouses & poly tunnels on the allotments were ruined. I don't remember the plants being that badly damaged though. Commiserations.
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Flipping 'eck to you too Snoop! :ohmy:
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Thunderstorms due every day for the next ten days. The weather this year is unbelievable.
The veg patch is a write-off. I was thinking of having a greenhouse but not after this. The brambles where our sparrow population was living have been shredded. There is absolutely no birdsong about the place and I haven't seen a single bird of any kind so far today. It's quite shocking and disturbingly quiet. The ground is littered with debris smashed down off the trees.
The solar panels look to be OK, the car insurance is paying for the windscreens and Mr Snoop is making inroads into clearing up the damage while I carry on working. One of the cats took a terrible hit to the head by the size of the lump and the wound he had when I spotted him very early this morning. But he'd gone when I went back and is now nowhere to be seen, so I think he might have taken himself off somewhere quiet.
Sorry for whinging. Thanks for all your kind remarks.
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Wow that is bad Snoop very sorry to hear that. We had a storm yesterday and the meteo did say there might be hail so I put the wife's new car in the garage just in case but the hail never came although it did rain heavily and the trees took a pounding. We live close the the Pyrenees and storms come about frequently in a warm spell and it has been very warm for nearly the whole summer. Hope you manage to get everything sorted out and the cat returns with nothing more than a head ache.
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You have my sympathies Snoop. I hope you don't get too downhearted but I have to say I have completely lost interest in the patch at the moment. I've got a few tomato plants against the wall but I've not picked any for over a week let alone fed them. I will probably grow a few next time but I've still not cleared away the flattened beans or anything. I will get around to it but I will probably then cover the whole lot with black polythene until I summon up enthusiasm again. As to top it all half my onions have already rotted in storage ( white rot I think), and the courgettes and marrows have already got mildew. On the bright side I might find time to go fishing or play the odd round of golf again.😀. I bet the ground would be glad of a rest too !
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What a rotten post for you both, Steve and Snoop.
My heart goes out to you guys, much more than somewhat.
Been there, done the clear-up, but it just doesn't help really does it, except that you have chums here who''ll make sure you get going again soon!
:0!
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It's devastating when your growing world comes tumbling down. You do wonder why do I do it? It's only if the pro reasons outnumber the cons that you can muster the energy to get up again and fight on. Snoop, I know you have lost all your winter crop hopefuls and it means you can't expect to feed yourself over the coming months, it's almost like a plague or biblical blight or something, I expect you don't even feel like talking about it at the moment, what a year you've had.... but if you survive this, really you know you can survive almost anything. I (we all) wish you well and hope you can summon what you need to survive the coming months. Steve, yours is a different problem and it involves you deciding what your priorities are and what, in the long run, gives you satisfaction. I think you are right in thinking "cover the lot up and come back when I've got a bit more energy and enthusiasm". That after all is what many of us do in short term emergency situations. Good luck to both of you.... at least it's at the end of the "growing" season and you have time to stand back and take stock.
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Thanks for all the commiserations guys. Fishing and golf sound like good options, Steve (unless you're the fish!), and would provide much of the pleasure I get from the vegetable patch, being outdoors, getting a little exercise and engaging in what is almost a meditative activity, as I'm totally distracted from work or household issues.
Yesterday one of the locals came round to view the damage to my plot. In a village near us, they're declaring a disaster zone, the storm was so bad. His vines have been shredded (grapes not quite ready for picking), all the almonds are on the ground (just about ready, so could be gathered off the ground, but it's harder work than gathering off the trees), as are the few olives that the trees produced this year. Puts my caulis and cabbages into perspective. He's a lovely man and we talked about plans for the future.
Mr Snoop's view is that six years out of seven, everything will be fine. I just have to accept that every now and then it won't. He thinks I should carry on, and he's the one who does nearly all the donkey work but doesn't get the same pleasure out of it that I do. So I'm rethinking my rethinking. Goats figure prominently after Tosca's recent posts on the new members of her family. Not immediately, but definitely in the next couple of years or so.
The cat hasn't been back. So he's our worst loss.
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Hi snoop, I am a newbie to the site so I hope you won't mind me joining this thread. I followed from Steves first post and felt so sorry for you. It is soul destroying. I have felt like giving up this year. Our problem is heavy salt winds. As fast as I repair, tie up or replace ,the wind does it again. I got an e mail from Thompson and Morgan today for 72 plug plants, pot luck, pansies etc for £6.50 inc p,p, so I bought them. Pansies look so happy. I will put them in pots where hopefully the wind can't get them and look at them and not the devastation in the garden, and maybe next year it will be good.
I really do wish you good luck with your plot and the others in your region, Mother Nature is a hard adversary.
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Snoop your sad loss gives me another insight into growing veg in Spain! I was of the opinion that it would be so easy and bountiful to be able to have more than one crop a year with all the sun and heat your true life experience just brought me back down to earth. I hope that you can salvage some veg/fruit and that you don't give up we all have our problems unfortunately we , or maybe just me, don't always see the problems others have.
Please keep you chin up and remember you start again tomorrow.
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Grandmasue, I read your thread on wind. Yours is a far more difficult situation as it's constant, whereas I just have to factor in and accept disasters every now and then. So I feel for you. I wonder if looking at French or Welsh sites for salt marsh lamb might start you off in the right direction: even if you're not about to start up a flock or take up shepherding, there might be some inspiration for gardens in there somewhere.
And thanks, brokenglass. Another local has been round today. We're all commiserating with each other, but at least I can carry on working, whereas they depend on their agricultural produce for their livelihood. My situation is a disappointment, whereas theirs is a disaster.
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Snoop! that is just so disheartening and downright scary. So much damage so fast. :ohmy: :( :(
I feel for you, and your neighbours. And the poor cat.