I feel your pain. Sorry. Dont forget ACE H/W, Costco and Wally world.

I scored a few 99cent lightly distressed 'maters at HD thursday, but only a few were left this afternoon. Raise what you can, barter.

I lost everything to the blight last year.

We plant this Tuesday, but 50% stay in containers.

D in the Springs

I feel your pain

Mayberrygardener,
It left your place and came to mine! I had my face pressed against the window saying "NOOOOOOOOO!" It was pea sized and lasted for about 5 minutes. I have more foliage standing than not, but you hate to have the plants you babied subjected to that. A lot of the plants will survive this, Mayberry, don't give up on them. Pick up a couple of plants in reserve just in case.
D, you are the smart one. I'll learn this eventually!
Barb

Mayberry, Im your neighbor in Westminster, I also got hit. I havent been out to see the damage, Im afraid to look.

Hate to hear you got hit by the frozen rain. I've been fearing we will be getting one. Keeping my fingers crossed. Been close but hasn't hit hard yet. Tomato plants will generally surprise you how well they rebound. Unless a total nub. It does set them back. If you can find nice sized plants in good shape they might produce sooner. But in two weeks usually you can't believe how well they come back. Here if it is early I usually replace them if I have nice replacements. If it is something I don't have replacements of and really want to grow I leave it. Later in the season when I don't have and can't buy any replacements I leave them. The one thing going for hailed out plants if they were established and fair sized if they have a nice root system to feed them while they recover. If a recent transplant then that isn't the case. Best of luck the rest of the season. Jay

*SOB* Okay, now that Taps has finished playing... I'm off to see what plant sales are going on this weekend. I think I'm going to "keep" some, but some are clearly beyond help. Darn it darn it DARN IT!!!

My favorite and most undecided stub: The hillbilly, which the entire main stem is intact, but every leaf and baby branch is ripped off. The top is intact. Debating on that one... the others are more evident that they either are or aren't going to make it!

If you clip it off several inches from the ground, the roots will grow a new stalk. I think it will grow much faster than a new plant. I lost a mexican giant to frost this spring (before I had heat in my GH) and it re-grew and is now blooming.
KennyP

Mayberry I am so sorry to hear about your storm. I was watching the storm on NOAA and it was nasty looking. I hear you about the un-organic, non-heirloom, "gee I wish this was a different kind of tomato/pepper" plants. I have some I picked up at HD after our storm here the other day. I was really looking forward to saving all the seed and seeing all the different types of peppers and toms I had picked out from all the different catalogs. I hope your little stems sprout more leaves and they all come back. Good luck!

ProvoGirl

Mayberry,

I PM'd you yesterday about possibly replacing a couple of your tomatoes. I need to know by tomorrow (Tuesday) evening if you're interested or not, 'cause ProvoGirl is gonna get them all if I don't hear from you! There are six of them---I just emailed her to pick out three of them, so you can have the other three-----if I hear from you!

Sorry for the short notice, but I'm trying desperately to get all my stuff in the ground and get rid of any leftovers in small pots before I leave town for almost two weeks the beginning of next week.

Check my email and let me know,
Skybird

I have one extra 'Better Bush' tom, but can't deliver to Brighton area until Jun 8th-9th.

Dan

Thanks, Dee & Dan, but I did the unthinkable and bought a few. I ended up without a grape tomato this year, but I'm all good to go. I decided the ones that appeared to have a new "branch" starting to come off the top would stay and be given their fighting chance. The ones where the top got lopped off are history, though, and are being replaced. Ended up with a Lemon Boy, and I then realized that I hadn't planted any yellows in my garden anyway--seredipity? Ummm... NO, I still hate the hail.

Anyway, thanks all for your generous offers, but I'm in good shape. Now if I can just get them all planted back out...

As a word of encouragement, 4 out of 5 years we have some weather event in mid-late june, be it hail or nasty freeze, that hammers the frost sensitive crops down to the ground. And every one of those years, the plants recovered enough to get a reasonable harvest.

But the one year we had 4 inches of hail on Sept 5th, not such a great harvest. Imagine what all ya'all went through, with a garden full of produce. I was carting off dozens of wheelbarrows of pulp.

We had a pretty good hail earlier in the spring and what I couldn't get covered got pounded pretty good - sedums will have hail scars all summer, and rhubarb won't be worth a darn this year. Everything else OK. Last year was really bad and stuff away from the house got set back ~3 weeks and with the early frost, much lower production last year. But at least stuff recovered and I got something.

Dan

For anyone with hail damage around Denver and looking to replace plants there are other options besides HD or Lowes. Dardano's carries quite a few heirlooms and probably Paulino's does.

I did find some heirlooms at O'Tooles--cherokee purple, and a few others; they also have hybrids, etc. Don't know how great anybody's selection will be after what my husband swears is the busiest weekend of the season for greenhouses and nurseries. However, their 1-gal tomoatoes were $5, 4" pots were $2.50; peppers were 3/$10.

Thanks again, all, for the encouragement. I will finish replanting in the morning. I am praying for no more hail, or at least for the clouds to part around my garden if it comes! :o)

I think we all feel your pain. Seems like someone gets hit every summer, and it's a terrible thing to go through.

Hope your garden does great from here on out!

Amen. I'm one of those who gets hit every summer. I'm the crazy guy in the neighborhood who puts up all the hoops when the storm is coming over the house. They can't say anything tho because I'm on the District board and I save us a lot of money. ;o)

Dan