One thing for sure, replace -->ALLHope everything goes well! Praying...

Here is a link that might be useful: Surge Protectors/Power Strips

oh dear, sure sounds like a mess!! lets hope your strips stopped the surge as they should have.

our elect has also been going off and on, but if it looks like we are getting a brown out or a surge, we kill the main switch at the box.

I hope that no damage is done, of if so, very little will have to be replaced at a low cost to you.

Sharon,

It sounds like a very odd experience and I hope the damage is minor. Hoping and praying you, the house and the dog are safe and sound today.

And the wind + heat do feel like a blow furnace today.

Dawn

That's just wierd, but Oklahoma is the place for it. Glad you're OK, but do have things looked at and I agree you need to throw those power strips away and get new ones.

The wind and heat here in the city HAVE been crazy. I do hope everything turns out all right for you. I also live in a 60 year old home with not the world's best wiring so I'm completely sympathetic!

I'm keeping an eye on my neighbors tree limbs as they jostle the utility line up and down so hopefully it doesn't cause problems for the rest of us.

Here's to your good fortune!!!

Sharon, oh my. I didn't have any trouble at my house, but the girl I work with lost her power for 3 hours.

The wiring in our houses are so old, I frequently wish I could afford to get new wiring. You might check with your insurance agent to see if they would cover rewiring if the electrician finds a problem.

Lisa

Well...apparently, I shouldn't have been bragging about how well my tomato plants were doing. We had 70 MPH winds here Tuesday and 3 inch hale in the area, although I didn't see any hail that large. It was very scary, the winds were straight from the west, knocked our power out too. Several of my plants were knocked down (the ones that weren't trellised yet), twisted up and busted up. The Prudens Purple (biggest plant that I have naturally) was busted in half. 1/2 is ok, and still in the ground, but the other 1/2, the side with all of the blossoms I brought in and have it in a pitcher of water. I added a few drops of Garrett Juice. The top of the plant is really starting to droop and look dead. Is there anything else I can do? I thought it would grow some roots in 2 or 3 days then i could stick in the ground, am I right? Sheri

We are suppose to have bad thuderstorms Thursday in a large portion of the state, everybody get ready!!! My spring tomato plants are set to the northwest of our house and privacy fence, kind of in a safe nook, nothing even touched them last year, the winds yesterday were so fierce, they just tunneled through and devastated the whole garden. I couldn't believe it.

Sheri,

It depends on how long the broken portion was lying there before you found it and brought it in. You may want to cut off only the top 4" to 6" and attempt to root that. If it didn't lie on the ground, busted off and dehydrating for too long it should be able to take up water and root, but it will take longer than 2 or 3 days. You should see roots START to form in two to three days, and sometimes the foliage will droop for a couple of days until the roots are large enough to help take up water and nutrients. I like to keep the rooting cutting in the container of water for a week or more to let it develop LOTS of roots. Then, plant it in a pot in very good potting soil and let it grow another week or longer. THEN, harden it off and plant it and you'll get fall tomatoes from it. You probably cannot save the blooms on it now and expect fruit from them, by the way.

Sorry to hear about the wind and hail and your garden's troubles. This is the worst summer weather I can remember. I'd rather have drought, or even excess rain, than the winds we're seeing now. As you have found, the winds can be so destructive AND there is not a lot you can do to keep the winds from dehydrating your plant's foliage.

With the wind blowing day and night and night and day, it is going to be more important for all of us to keep our eyes on our plants and make a special effort to keep the foliage (and not just the roots) hydrated. Normally, I try really hard to keep all the water off the plants' foliage that I can, especially in the veggie garden, but this week I have been misting everything twice a day. I'd rather deal with foliar disease than brown and dessicated leaf margins and other dehydration-type problems.

There is only a slim chance we'll have rain here in Love County although I know the chances are better for much of the state.

And, Sheri, whenever I look at my garden and think happily to myself that it has never looked better, or at least hasn't looked "this good" in years, I have a feeling of dread in my heart. Why? Because it never fails.....just when the garden is looking is best is when we tend to have some sort of disaster.....hail, high wind, wildfire, huge swarms of grasshoppers migrating in, a herd of deer in the garden stripping it overnight, etc. It never fails. Never.

Hope everyone escapes major damage today.

It seems like it is going to be a very long summer.

Dawn

My plants are getting knocked over and tossed around in the wind, but so far nothing is damaged!

I think this has been the windiest May and June we've had in a long time.

Tree branches that nobody could reach are starting to come down in the back yard, and I'm almost afraid to go out there for fear of one crashing down on my head!

The front yard - not so worried. I have two huge Austrian Pines in the front that aren't coming down in either a hurricane or tornado! Very strong, squatty trees.

Right now, the wind is blowing so hard out back, I don't know if I'll go out there today. The limbs of the Bradford Pear (GRRRRRR) are most likely to split and come down. I knew I should have let it grow back, but my neighbor told me he really liked the shade it provided for his antique Cars. Probably won't if it lands on one of them! LOL!

I've been out squishing milkweed beetles and milkweed bugs like crazy, and destroying the eggs they lay. I know I can't get them all, but they really like to lay eggs on the sandvine (cynanchum laeve). But, they then like to eat the Asclepias incarnata, A. syriaca, A. purpurescens, and A. curassavica. So, I find them and squish them or throw them on the sidewalk and schmoo them.

I doubt there will be a lot of butterflies today, because there haven't been since the winds got worse this week. They cannot fly in this horrible wind. I see some of the stronger flyers, like the Silver-Spotted Skippers, Cabbage Whites, Eastern Tailed Blues, Hackberry Emperors and Tawny Emperors, but not much else.

Some of the stems on the vines are getting snapped from it, like my passion vines and pipevines.

And......my allergies are killing me due to the weeds!

I just wish the winds would calm down somewhat. I can handle 10-15 mph, but it's blowing a lot harder than that out there today!

Susan

Update here...well, I think everything is just about back to normal. All of my outlets are fine, but FIVE of those crazy energy saver bulbs (that were supposed to last for years) burned out. A couple of them were in multiple bulb fixtures - one was fine, the other was not. Both of the bulbs that survived are now "strobing"...I expect they really won't last either. I'm replacing the power strips and SO thankful for the one that gave it's life for my (less-than-a-year-old) digital tv, ha ha. The power strip/battery backup for my computer and printer worked just like it's supposed to and it's fine. The only thing I haven't really explored is my dryer...I'll open that up tonight to see if it's fried, or ok. I really appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers in my behalf. [[Lisa, if State Farm decides to pay for my house to be rewired, you'll hear my shouts of excitement all the way to your house...I'm thinking, uh, probably not, but I can dream! ]]

Meanwhile, I do have a question. My daughter's newly-created plot is a very sandy loam with some added composted cotton burrs. Last night we went out and it looks like the Dust Bowl Days (can you imagine how downhearted those people had to have been???)...she obviously needs a good layer of mulch to hold her soil and moisture. What would be inexpensive and yet good for her to use? Her plot is 8 X 8, but only 10 plants - 2 watermelon, 2 tomato, 1 eggplant, and 5 peppers. My compost pile is smallish and new this year and still in process, so I don't think we'd benefit from pulling some of it out to use. I'm thinking maybe a trip back to the stables/horse fields where we got some composted manure for my use earlier in the spring?? They've got huge piles in the fields, so maybe we could get down under those for the best partially-composted sawdust and manure combo...any other thoughts?

Susan,

We had wind gusts up around 40 m.p.h. during the night....our second or third day of wind 24/7. It is not blowing nearly so hard now, only about 15 to 25, but expected to worsen and we may have gusts in the 40 mph (per local TV meteorologist) to 50 mph (per NWS) range. And I think parts of Oklahoma are having much worse wind than we are. Enough is enough already.

I've lost track of how many trees we've lost in the woods. We don't venture into the woods much during snake season, so I guess we'll clean them up in the winter. The northern edge of my garden is adjacent to the woods, with about an 8' clearing between them, and I kept waiting for a tree to fall on me in the garden yesterday. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

Some of my tomato plants have lost limbs, and I lost 1/2 of a Husky Red Cherry tomato plant in a pot. I'm having a hard time keeping everything from dehydrating, including me. Even the guineas and chickens are impacted. Instead of free-ranging and doing their bug-eating, they either hide under the porch or lay down in the grass just outside their house and pen. One thing about wind like this....if any tomato cage was not staked properly and thoroughly, it will show you by toppling over. (I've only had 2 blow over, which isn't bad considering there are 140 of them.) I did spend some time yesterday giving some of the largest plants a 3rd or 4th stake since they usually only have 2 stakes.

Not only are butterflies less active, but the hummers seem to be less active as well. Even the deer seem affected. They are coming to eat in the garden (bad deer!) while I am still in it, which is a problem. Actually, them being there at all is a problem. I guess next week we'll finally put up a second level of fencing 'cause our relatively short fencing (3' to 4') doesn't keep them out. This week they've been eating pumpkin, squash zucchini, tomato, okra, and pepper plants. They've been eating jalapeno peppers, too, and my Texas Red Star Hibiscus. (sigh) This is the worst they've ever been, I think, and it is so early in the season.

Lots of ornamental plants are losing flowers, stems, etc. as the wind snaps them, and everything dries out really quickly. I think I'm just going to pull out the poppies today instead of deadheading them. Their foliage is browning rapidly and they wouldn't last but another week or so anyway. I pull them out so they won't take over that bed, and I still get a billion volunteers the following spring, even though I deadhead regularly to keep seed set from occurring.

My allergies have been awful too.

The weather forecast looks sort of wicked today for many Okies, but we're just barely outside the slight risk area in our part of Love County. On the map, it looks like it ends a couple of miles west/northwest of us. That doesn't mean we won't get hit though. It seems like some of our worst weather here happens when the forecast looks "good", so maybe "good" is...

Well I hope everyone recovers, without too much despair.

Susan,

I am having the worst allergy problems since Tuesday, that I have had all year. We had so much dirt blown up here today, the sky was brown.

Dawn,

Hopefully that innate sense of "Oh no, they look way too good to be true" will be ingrained by next year. I was able to laugh about it today, because I had worried so much about hail, and thought that was the worst thing that would come out of a storm, for the plants. And with my "safe garden spot", I wasn't even concerned about the wind, I was just so relieved and had a false sense of security about not receiving any big hail. Then when I saw the devastation, it was shock and awe. I'm laughing now, because I think they are all going to recover, but I sure wasn't laughing Tuesday. I hope this wind is one of those nina issues or whatever, and not here to stay. Sheri

Oh and my seedling flats got blown over again, I am just planting them, not even going to try to figure out what is what anymore.

Sheri,

All I can say is that I cannot imagine what it would be like if our families had to rely on our gardens alone for ALL their produce for the year! LOL We'd all be skinny little sticks.

Ooh, thunder starting up here, so I'd better get off the computer. I am always concerned about the wind, because the northern edge of my garden butts up against the forest and I keep expecting to walk out to the garden after a bad storm and find a huge tree laying on top of the garden.

You have a great attitude....keep it up! Gardening adds much enjoyment to our lives, and we can't let the negative stuff like wind and swarms of locusts and such drive us bonkers. The great thing about gardening is that.....there's always next year! (And, yes, I know bad athletic teams always say that too!)

I keep telling DH I want a retractable roof over my garden and he keeps telling me "NO". I guess if gardening were easy, everyone would do it, there would be no problems, and then....what would we talk about?

I have the fire radio on and hear the local police going out to unlock the community shelters (mostly basements at the local schools), so I really DO have to get off this computer.

Later!

Dawn

Well, I believe we've made it thru another round. Straightline winds and a tornado warning, but luckily my home is still here and intact with power. The kids' playset is blown over, but that's happened before. The wind the last few days alone has been a problem. We noticed 2 homes not far from ours with shingles blown off today. I hope all of you out there came thru it okay as well. I'm kind of dreading going out in the morning to check the garden and everything else outside. But I do agree - there's always next year !!!

Jill

After all the dire forecasts, etc., I went to bed and fell asleep RIGHT AWAY, even before the "storm" arrived here. I had the scanner on and was listening to Carter County storm spotters, dozed off, never heard any rain, thunder or lightning.....didn't even hear DH arrive home from work....and woke up a little after 3:00 a.m. to the sound of......SILENCE. No howling wind like we've had all night all week long, no nothing. I thought maybe it had missed us, but I just went outside and checked the rain gauge and we had (in the dark) what appeared to be about 2/100s of an inch of rain or so. I guess it did either mostly miss us or it petered out before it got here. (Darn it....I thought at least we'd get some good rain out of it.)

Looking at the radar, it looks northeast of us now, so I'm going back to bed. Well, there's a little storm cell west of Fort Worth that might make it here, but it is moving slow and I bet it misses us too.

Jill, I hope your garden survived. Mine has been so battered by the wind that I don't know why every plant in it isn't lying flat on the ground. (Some are.) I also lost at least half of several of the smaller plants in containers (mostly Husky Red Chery). The wind broke them right in half, and they were loaded with fruit. I hope the surviving half recovers, but the world won't end if they don't.

Dawn

I bet your Husky Reds will recover Dawn, and probably put out tons of new growth.

I didn't know about replacing surge protectors, and I've had the same one for about 4 years now. I will get a new one asap.

With all the remaining loose branches in the trees I've spotted since the ice storm, only two itty bitty ones came down. The Bradford Pear is still standing (GRRRR). The only nuisance was that it blew over a couple of pots, but they are fine.

It was frightening with all that wind, thunder, lightening and rain, though. I had my GD last night. I told her I would protect her even if I had to lay on top of her to keep anything from falling on her. She said, "but nanny, that would kill me, too"! LOL! Out of the mouths of babes.

I heard a new term on the weather last night - "Gustnado". Never heard it before, but am assuming it meant the winds were strong enough to qualify as minor, very minor, tornados. I just cannot keep up with all this emerging new lingo.

We don't have a shelter anywhere near us. I called one time and asked, and they said, "nope, no shelters in your vicinity". That makes me feel really safe. However, when a tornado strikes, unless you have a shelter in your home or just outside, I don't know how one would make it to the shelter in time. We will just use our interior walk-in closet.

I'm just shocked there was no more damage than there was. Power was out for a lot of folks. Reports of flashes from electrical boxes all over town, but our elect. held just fine. Lights flickered a few times, but that's all.

I woke up to blooms on the datura, lilies, buds on the Monarda that I've never had bloom in 5 years.....finally!
Blooms all over the White Profusion buddleia. My peach flowering trumpet vine is finally putting buds on! I grew it from seed, and it's taken 4 years to produce flowers. I had been told it would take a few years. Even the Joe Pye Weed 'Gateway' with no stems broken or bent. They usually go really fast in wind because of the hollow stems.

Trellises still standing! So, we're fine. Hope everyone is okay.

Susan

We, too, survived. After my daughter and I both got home from work we ran to get shredded pine bark mulch to put down in her garden...got home with that and got it spread (whilst standing at 45deg. angles!!)
I discovered that a hanging half-basket that I had attached to my pecan tree had been blown off...how, I do not know. The impatiens in that should survive, though battered. I'll get it put back up with longer screws.
Electrical wiring is still holding...now it's my roof. Roofing has torn away on the west side of the house, at the very edge of the roof. I lost probably 6-8 shingles with edging as well. The problem is that the underlying deck is rather rotten and won't hold the nails to hold the shingles...at least not in gale force winds!! :( Always something! BUT...it's calm today and that's a blessing!

Susan,

I think I've been hearing the term "gustnado" for about 10 years now, ever since we moved to southern Oklahoma. It is a fairly short-lived, relatively weak tornado-like roatation that forms along a gust front (the surge of very gusty winds at the leading edge of a thunderstorm's outflow of air).

At first, when I heard the term I thought of it as a fancy name for those little dust devils we see sometimes, but I think a gustnado is different from them.

Gustnadoes generally appear as rotating dust or debris clouds. Obviously, their name is a combination of "gust front tornado."

Although some people think a gustnado is just a weak tornado, it is something separate. The Storm Prediction Center describes gustnadoes as small and usually weak whirlwinds which form as a kind of eddy in thunderstorm outflows. They do not connect with any cloud-base rotation, but often have a spinning dust cloud at ground level, leaving them to someetimes be wrongly reported as tornadoes.

Gustnadoes can do some minor damage like overturning and scattering trash cans, throwing around lawn furniture and other yard items, and breaking tree limbs and windows.

Although they are small, they can be dangerous and you should never drive into one OR should go inside to stay out of one if it is approaching. I've never heard a specific wind speed associated with them.

How exciting that you have some new, long-awaited blooms!

Everything is fine here except for the green tomatoes knocked off of plants by the winds last night. They look too green to eventually ripen, so I guess we'll have some fried green tomatoes or maybe fried green tomato sandwiches.

A second wave came through here between 4 and 5 a.m. but all we got out of that was a bright lightning show.

Dawn

Well, nothing major outside this morning - just some things tossed around that need put back in place. A lot of things lying flat in the garden - I figure some will make it and some not. I'm not going to stress about it too much. That wouldn't do any good and it's not a total loss by any means. I can just fill in the holes with something else : ) - there's always something else to plant, isn't there? Glad to hear no really bad reports yet, but I know there's been a lot of wind damage in some places.

Susan,

Everything you've described sounds just beautiful - hope the butterflies come in droves. We gather in a small closet too. I'm more concerned because we live way too far out to hear any sirens, I guess they gave me a little peace of mind when I lived in town. Now, I feel like I have to stay up monitoring the storms with the radio and tv.

Sharon

Good luck with the roof - you're right, it's always something - but at least there's a roof to fix.

Jill

Jill,

You do have a weather radio (or the newer All-Hazards Radio, don't you?) Ours is indispensable, and we have the peace of mind that comes from knowing the alert will go off to warn us of approaching trouble. We are about 7 or 8 miles outside of town, so no sirens we can hear, and no community shelter. (We do have a tornado shelter in the backyard, about 15' from the back door.)

Susan,

Lots of butterflies in the garden today since the wind has dropped off considerably! I hope you're having some as well.

Sharon,

Sorry to hear about the roof. It's always something, isn't it? I am glad the damage wasn't worse than it was, though, because the potential certainly was there for really severe damage.

Dawn

Haven't noticed anything but the Cabbage White and the Silver-spotted Skipper (which is a hoot to watch). But, I had my GD today. We had scrambled eggs & sausage for breakfast, then went to Walmart shopping; came home and undid all the terrible wrapping they do to toys these days (takes about an hour). I fixed homemade chicken salad (with grapes, onions, celery, just like Kenna likes it). She took two baths (one for mosquitoes, and one for fleas); I washed up all the dishes, swept the floor, and by the time she left, I was really too tired to even go outside.

So needless to say, I didn't get much butterfly watching done today. Yesterday, I took some photos of weeds in the yard which I can't ID. Thought I'd post here first (tomorrow) and then on Weed ID forum.

Gosh, I remember when we didn't have tornado warnings (back in the old days). We lived in a very small town, and whenever we thought the weather was getting bad, we got under the beds (we were just kids!).

But, with all the sophisticated equipment they have now, it still doesn't seem like the forecasts have improved a lot.

Susan