Hurricane Readiness in the Garden
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| The apples stayed on the tree, even if the tree tipped over |
After we gathered emergency supplies such as water, food for our family, BBQ fuel, batteries and flashlights, a trip to the library and cleaned up the yard, I set my attention to protecting the animals and the gardens. After figuring out the prevailing winds would be from the South and the South West, we turned the rabbit tractors into the wind so they wouldn't flip, locked the animals all inside securely and set our sites to the plants.
My cukes had just sprouted their first tiny cucumbers the day before the hurricane so I tied the vines down low to the ground to a post. I like to use pipe cleaners because we always have them laying around after children have finished craft projects and because their soft padding doesn't dig into the tender plants. The Sunflowers got stakes and they were pipe cleaner tied on to their new guardians.
We didn't get any rain after all and after the hurricane the chickens destroyed my husband's perfect garden berm. Next time, perhaps he will listen to his wife and use the old feed sacks to fill with dirt, so it doesn't wash away or get dug apart by Nefarious chicken attacks.
During the storm while the "prevailing" winds were indeed out of the south and south-west, I had forgotten that the nature of a hurricane is it spins up winds from all directions and so while I had prepared, and the garden did well against the strongest winds, the poor plants got whipped back and forth in all directions.
In the middle of the storm the flaps of plastic for the hoop house came undone and started beating my biggest tomato plant, slapping it to and fro. I ran out and secured that. My sunflower was almost horizontal so I raised it's pipe cleaner tie up the post. I could do little else but watch it get pushed and pulled against it's post and hope it didn't snap.
This wasn't particularly a bad storm. It was in fact a Post Tropical storm but it did it's share of damage and was a good practice for hurricane preparedness. There was more damage to my gardens then I had initially thought. We and our animals were all fine. The internet went out for a few days and the power flickered but we were lucky it didn't go out. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their power, some for almost a week! We did fine and one of our rabbits even gave birth during the storm!
When it was over, all of my outdoor plants looked haggard but seemed more or less okay. The tomatoes looked the worse. I watered everyone and took off some of the ties. I raised the cucumber vines to begin their climb up over the unused hoops of the hoop house. A few days later my biggest zucchini plant, which was about to flower, went all limp. The leaves were all wilted. I watered it thinking it would perk up but it got worse. The next day I brushed aside some mulch to discover the storm had blown away a lot of it's covering and had worked it's main root up and out of the soil! I covered it back up and watered it. The center is the only part still alive, but I am hoping it makes a recovery.
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| My former thriving Zucchini |
The day after the storm I went out to check on the aphid situation on the fruit trees and I discovered the trees were tipped over! I was alarmed but upon further investigation discovered the roots were still fine The young trees just leaned so the branches were on the ground. I am currently, slowly correcting their posture with a metal rod and a rope covered in old hose (we never throw away anything). I looked at my red currant bush and it looked tilted. It's roots were exposed on one side. I am not sure if the storm or an over zealous dust bathing chicken are to blame. The currant bush is a bit pale and still tipped a little but I think it will be okay.
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| Pear tree being given some vertical therapy |
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