We were in Dallas last Wednesday through Friday, to participate in the Texas Senior Softball Championships, but Mother Nature intervened in a big way. Early Thursday morning I awoke to an awesome electrical show, seventy to eighty mile per hour winds and a driving rainstorm. Another washed out tournament was my first thought, but by noon the sun was shining and a good, steady wind was blowing from the south, just the ingredients to dry out the fields. We played a shortened tournament on Friday and my team, The Texans, won our age group.

Back home in Goldthwaite, Thursday night’s storm was almost equal to that morning’s storm in Dallas. The same speed winds, seventy to eighty, sustained for over an hour, five inches of rain and golf ball size, hail. Folks around here said if the wind hadn’t been blowing so hard, our rain gauges would have shown eight or nine inches.

After the fact I heard about the Goldthwaite storm and after asking if everyone, including our pets, were safe, my second thought was about my garden, just swinging into production.

Friday afternoon as I was leaving Dallas, I noticed a huge, thunderhead to the northwest. Switching on the radio, I followed the track of this storm all the way from Mineral Wells to Hamilton, thirty miles east of Goldthwaite. This was the worst of the three spawning four tornadoes on the ground, grapefruit size hail, loads of rain and high, straight line, winds. I was real lucky since I was running ahead of the storm and it turned east, away from Goldthwaite.

Arriving home late Friday afternoon, during a good, heavy rain, the garden was too sloppy to get into and inspect, so Monday morning I took these pictures of the small amount of damage.

Worst hit were my wild garlic and dill. These plants are on the northeast side and bore the brunt of the wind and I lost two, dill and one, garlic plant.

The dill and basil around the jalapeno plants were pushed around, but will survive.

The black eye peas, since they were on a long trellis, were almost flattened, but are still producing.

Most protected were the Kentucky wonder beans and straight neck squash.

 

Here you can see the squash blossoms and one squash ready to pick.

Looking back over the past spring, the garden has survived one freeze, a heavy wind storm and two hail storms. This should make the surviving plants strong and help to produce a great harvest!