Hail - awful damage from weekend storm... Any advice on how to help recovery?
January Man
Posts: 212
Hi all
It's the first year of gardening for me (after a long hiatus). I've got lots of different berries in, some fruit trees, rhubarb, courgettes, sprouting broccoli, various beans. And lots of different herbs.
On Saturday we were hit by a major hailstorm. Stones the size of 10 pence pieces came down so hard that they were hitting the ground and bouncing back up 6 foot+.
I'm sure the cold didn't do my plants any favours. But much worse was the amount of shredding and snapage the plants and leaves have suffered. It was gutting to see a few months of hard work and £200-£300+ obliterated in 20 minutes.
Anyhow, enough of the sob story! I wondered if anyone has any advice as to how I can help my fruit and veg recover. Will any particular plant food/treatment/fertiliser be the most effective? Should I remove shredded leaves or just those that have snapped? Any other advice or words of wisdom?
Would really appreciate any help anyone can offer.
Many thanks
Max
Posts
I had this happen a couple of years ago in late May and it's devastating but not a total disaster. Some of my shrubs and trees still bare the scars on their bark.
You need to cut the broken stems of plants like rhubarb and hostas and any stems with shredded leaves back to ground level and then give them a bit of a feed with something like pelleted chicken manure. I did this and they regrew.
Where stems of flowering plants and shrubs and fruit bushes have been broken you need to cut them off below the break or wound and make it a clean cut so disease can't get in through torn tissues. Again, a light scattering of fertiliser will help them recover.
I guess we all take a battering at times.. I have a few holes in my plastic greenhousethe hail made it cold and brittle and so I found the next day some holes. Kind of annoying as its only about 2 months old..
Today we had high winds and I noticed my potatoes topgrowrh bend and broken and before the flowers could emerge too. Its bad enough loseing a lot to slugs and snails but this was the unaffected plants!!
The torrential rain is causing cabbages to rot and its widespread on inspection today..
The runner beans are taking a battering too. So many things in nature conspire against us, uts a wonder we have any crops to pick.
Hi all
After all your hard work my heart goes out to you as I know too well just what the British weather can do to our tender crops especially when they are just getting their legs and settling after being planted out.
After a lessons learnt last year I have just taken some protective covers I had over my soft plants as up in the north east we have had heavy rain and hailstorms warning
I hope your crops recover and you get a good harvest good luck we need it and
Happy gardening
Thanks for the replies one and all.
The weather still isn't particularly summery, but we're getting the odd good day (or at least part day). Things are by no means back to how they were, but there are good signs of recovery all around the garden. Only the odd things here and there perished completely. With one or two plants I'm still uncertain as to whether they will survive or not.
But anyhow, was really popping back to the thread more to say thanks for the replies and for the help. Oh, and Chris - your garden looks great!