Did anyone else have hail damage last night?

The weatherman finally got his prediction correct and we had a giant hail storm last night. I am posting pictures taken by my son last night and again this morning about 8:00 AM. He said that last night the yard was totally covered with hail stones so it looked like snow. This morning there is a solid block of ice about 3’ by 4’ by 1 ½’ high still blocking the door to the backyard. The hail storm ended nine hours ago and the ice is still there. Unbelievable! And a disaster for my vegetables and berry bushes.

Picture taken last night.

A picture from this morning.

Oh my Goodness, bless you, I am so sorry about the damage, the weather around here can be incredible, I am glad you were not hurt.
We just had some sprinkles and a lot of wind, no hail.
Josephine.

Grim, knew this year would be good for hail in that area....

After further assessment, I’m going to be starting my garden all over again except for a few vegetables that might make a comeback. I was just sick when I saw that all 23 of my Cupid tomatoes, just days from ripening, had been knocked off of the plant and were lying on the ground, as were most of my other tomatoes. The squash, zucchini and eggplant were stripped of most of their leaves but might make it. I am going to replant some just to be sure that I get some harvest this year. I suppose that I should be looking for tomato varieties at the local nurseries that have the shortest time from planting until harvest. Have any suggestions on what varieties to buy and a good place to buy them? NHG had a pretty good selection last time I was there but that was last week. And can you believe that there is still a block of frozen hail stones on my patio from last night?!!

Wow, I guess we just dodged a bullet over here. We just got enough rain to barely wet the pavement.

Your poor garden! Hail certainly does a lot of damage in Texas. Did you have warning that it was going to hail? Was it really windy as well?
My daughter works at a bakery and brings home those white buckets that they ship frosting and liquid sugar, etc, in. I am happy to share them (and in fact do give lots of them away to other gardeners and people who store chicken feed, horse feed, etc.) The problem is getting them to people who live a long ways off....
Anyway, your tomato plants would probably been too big to be protected by 4 gallon buckets..... So sorry this happened to you! Like you say - just have to replant.

I bought all new tomato plants today to replace the ones destroyed by the hail storm last Thursday night. I will get them in the ground today or tomorrow but I realize that harvest, if there one, is 55 to 75 days away. Our daytime temperatures by then will be in the upper 90’s or even low 100’s and at night it won’t get below 80 degrees, so I probably have little chance of harvesting many tomatoes this year. We are already having some days of 90 degree weather. I was trying to figure out if there was anything I can do and the only solution I could come up with is covering the plants with a sun screen material to help keep the daytime temperature a little lower. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

So sorry to hear about the hail damage to your garden. The size of hail we get in this area, I don't think there's anything you could use to protect from it. The last time we had hail here at our place a few years ago, it sounded like someone was throwing bricks on the roof. The next day the ground looked like the surface of the moon, big craters where the hail stones had sunk into the ground and then melted.

hrp50, I grieve with thee...

What variety of tomatoes did you end up getting? I use the shade cloth in July when I plant for the fall garden and they have survived. Good luck and I am really sorry for the garden wreck!. Janet

Yikes! Rowlett got lots of pea-sized hail, very strong winds, and 1" of rain. But lucky the hail didn't do any damage, besides knocking lots of leaves off the trees. Springtime in Texas is not for the timid.

Carla

Everyone - Thank you for your sentiments. I guess that along with the good has to come a little bad to balance things out and make you really appreciate the good.

I purchased Early Girl, Juliet, Celebrity, Better Boy, Sweet 100’s, BHN 444, Brandy Boy Hybrid, and Sunpride. I was not able to replace my Sapho, San Marzano and Cherokee Purple varieties. The good news is that after 7 days my okra, bush beans, pole beans, sugar snap peas and snow peas have germinated and I have sprouts coming up out of the soil. I guess it was just dumb luck that I planted them so late or I would have lost them to the hail as well.

An interesting note is that when I pulled up the old tomato plants, the original root ball had increased in size but there were no roots growing out of the main stem above the root ball. I have always subscribed to the notion of planting tomatoes and peppers so that part of the stem above the root ball is buried in the soil so additional roots will grow from the stem making the plant stronger. My tomato plants had been in the ground a little over a month and I saw no sign of new roots on the buried portion of the stem.

was too early for them, they hadnt needed to add xtra roots for water or food yet, you were giving all they needed. I know it will be hot, but now is planting time, equinox rolling thru very very late this year

It's 5:30 PM in Carrolton, all of my new plants are in the ground and we are having a hail storm, not as bad as last Thursday night, but a hail storm just the same. Its going to be an interesting year.

Hail only marble size got SW Ft Worth but a littler further south and north they are reporting golf ball size. Sure hope my friends are safe. We did get a nice welcomed rain with it also.

We had some about quarter-half dollar size. Didn't do much damage.

We had very little rain, and almost no hail, we really need the rain, but oh well!!!

Third night in a row we have had some hail I haven't ventured outside yet (waiting on the coffee maker) so don't know if there is any damage most everything is covered except for some cukes,and a few random tomato plants

Fortunately the small amount of hail we got didn't do any damage. I hope that everyone else escaped damage to their plants also. I don't ever remember having the weather we're having this year, multiple hail storms, temps in the 90's in April, and wind gusting to 35 - 50 mph on almost a daily basis. What's next, a plague of locusts? (ha)

Don't say that hrp, grasshoppers will decent upon us!!!

We got some hail Tuesday night but very little damage. But the rain, probably not even an inch, did wonders !! I cannot believe how much a plant can grow overnight after a rain. Rainwater is just different than irrigation water somehow. My little zucchini squash plants that had been really pitifully yellow and sick looking during all the hot wind turned green overnight and, I swear, grew 3 or 4 inches in 24 hours. Same with the new flower plants that had just been sitting there barely surviving during all the hot wind. It was like a whole different world in my yard yesterday.

I remember the hail storm during MayFest in 1995. I don't want that again!

Dogs_N_Petunias

Rainwater is much more desirable for watering our plants than water from our local water utility company. Do you have a rainwater collection system?

If not and if you could make it to Plano, I highly recommend the two hour “Saving for a Rainy Day-Making a Rain Barrel” class through the Texas Agrilife Research and Extension Center. I just took the class today and came away with two 55 gallon rain barrels, cost $40 each, and they provide not only the barrel for that price but also the faucet and other accessories and help you assemble it (you don't have to get more than one). Have you priced rain barrels online or at Home Depot or Lowe’s? Now I am considering increasing my scope by adding additional barrels so I can water my entire landscape. There are many benefits to collecting rainwater that you lean during the class

we did a thread on the rainwater systems last year planolinda started it and it was very interesting ..I had just installed one with only my imagination as a teacher>>> wish I could have taken a class would sure have saved a lot of time and frustration ..here barrels cost anywhere from $5--$15 with the $5 ones being available from the city water dept. but of course I didn't learn of those untill I purchased mine for 7-9 dollars the main thing that I have learned is to have an effective screen system in place it is unreal how much trash is on a roof that is surrounded by trees

Here are my two 55 gal rain barrels.
I took a class last year from the city of Irving and for $20 I got a rain barrel.
I took my DH with me ... so we had two rain barrels.

I have attached a "diverter" so when the barrel is full I just turn the little level and the water will go back into the rain gather.

drthor
Real nice setup you have there. It helps seeing other people’s setups as there are so many different ways of doing it. I haven't set my in place yet and am trying to look at all the options. Do you have any irrigation hoses/tubing attached, like a drip system? The class instructor said that we would need to attach a pump to get the water pressure up to where a drip irrigation system attached to the rain barrel would work.

No, I just have a fossit.
I use the water when I need to fertilize my vegetable garden or other flowers.
My garden has a sprinkler system and my vegetable garden has a soaker hose connect to a timer.
I use the rain water mostly has a extra ... but it is very nice.
If I ever built another house I will built a huge tank for water harvest. I cannot believe how fast my 2 rain barrels fill up just from one corner rain gather.

Hail storm, part deux:

Today we had our second hail storm in Carrollton this spring that left an accumulation of hail stones on the ground that were a little larger than pea-sized, more like pinto bean-sized. In the picture you can see the white hail stones contrasted by the black soil. Luckily it caused no noticeable damage.

If you notice in the foreground of the raised bed there are some small okra plants. I looked back at my post on April 18th when I mentioned that my okra had germinated and were a inch or so high. They remained that same height, not growing a millimeter, until last Wednesday,almost five weeks later, when they suddenly decided to put on their true leaves and take off growing. I guess they just weren't going to grow until the temperature was right since okra does like hot weather. I was beginning to think that I might be asked to turn in my license to practice gardening because I couldn't grow okra, probably the easiest thing to grow in Texas

Sorry about the damage to your garden :( . We are still as dry as a bone down here on the coast.............. (Sigh)

When I first opened the thread I thought you got hit bad again, then I realized that was earlier this year pictures. Glad it didn't destroy like it did before.
We got nickel and a few quarter size but no great damage. Holes in some leaves seems to be all. SW fort worth.

hrp50 .. you must live in the "Bermuda triangle" .....
I don't understand why you got all the bad weather this year and I didn't !
I am not asking for it !!! .... but it is funny because I live maybe 8 miles from ya !!
giggle

drthor
Weatherman on tv just said that the hail storm last night passed over Irving. I hope that you didn't get hit, did you? Ironic isn’t it that you had just stated that you hadn’t had any bad weather this year? Maybe you jinxed yourself (ha). We didn't get any hail last night, only heavy rain.

We had pea and marble sized hail last night, not a lot, but some. Mostly the storms were north of us. We did get some rain, though.

I know that there were areas that received as large as tennis ball sized hail last night. I don't know how any garden could survive that. I know that I was up extra early this morning to check for damage, luckily there was none.

I just saw on tv the damage in Irving from hail...hope you didn't get it drthor.

thanks so much for your concerns.
I am fine. House is fine ... no much hail ... just lots of rain and wind and tomatoes all over the garden.
Thanks haven I have lot of plants.
Good luck to everybody else.

Glad to know you beautiful garden dogged the bullet. Now need to hear from our other folks in the path of those storms.

NOT that I want any storms or hail, but a bit of rain would be lovely here in W Houston. We haven't had ANY in so long. Even the flower beds that tend to stay damp are drying up. One of my fuchsias was totally wilted when I got home today :( Good luck with storms. And drthor, I only have 7 tomato plants. I'd be crying if my few tomatoes got knocked off!