Wednesday evening, it hailed. We were expecting rain, but the hail we were not. It battered the snot out of most of my garden, destroyed all but one hop plant, tore through the leaves on my squash and tobacco and beat down many of my tomato plants. I ran outside and grabbed as much as I could and started dragging it in the house, but by that point, the damage was done.
I've spent the last couple mornings before work nursing what's left, which ain't much, in the hopes that it will pick back up. Time will tell.
Bring the hops shreds indoors, provide bottom heat , give'em a shot of nitrogen fertilizer , and they may recover. They are a perrennial, after all .
Same thing for the tomato plants, but water down the nitrogen fertilizer so that they are encouraged to leaf out and recover, but not so much that they get "leggey'.
Same with squash plants since they don't like the roots disturbed, and don't transplant well.
That's why they call famers/ gardeners as the world's first gamblers.
Oh no! sympathies to you on your losses. Hail happens so fast and is over with so quick, that there’s not much you can do about it.
The hail “destroyed all but one hop plant, tore through the leaves on my squash and tobacco and beat down many of my tomato plants.”
I am so sorry that happened. I’m sure you were a basket case as you knew they were being murdered. I would have a fit seeing all that effort and the plants being killed.
We have had storms one after another with threat of hail and high winds and had one last night with small hail. We will have more of that in the days ahead.