The Calm After the Storm

Reader Contribution by Ann And Nick
Published on August 25, 2014
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Over the weekend here in Central Illinois, we had many storms that brought lots of rain. The adjacent road to Ann’s house floods with the least amount of rain, and it is nerve wracking for the families in that area whenever the weatherman calls for rain several days in a row. But this past weekend was one that not only had thundershowers throughout the late night/early morning, but winds strong enough to blow the wind sideways.

The next day, Ann woke up to leave for school and went out to her backyard like she does every morning only to find chaos. Every tomato cage in the yard was toppled flat to the ground. Having to leave to the bus stop, Ann had no time to start the cleanup and adjustments after every storm. We have had storms strong enough to tilt the tomato cages of course, but they had never knocked them flat.

So that day, I picked Ann up after her tennis practice, which ended at 5. We went back and found that it wasn’t just as bad as we had thought … it was worse. The tomato cages created a domino effect, knocking over the bell peppers. We were glad to find that the peppers were not harmed and were able to be righted with a little easy coaching and replanting. The tomatoes took the worst of the damage. They were completely uprooted, stems were snapped in half, and two of the tomato cages were even broken in spots. The tomato cages can be welded back together, and I hope to do that sometime before next planting season. But there was no such hope to be able to fix the tomato plants. We picked off all the tomatoes and now have them wrapped in newspaper to help them turn red. It is very sad and frustrating to have one entire part of your garden destroyed over one night, but we are still going strong with the rest of our plants.

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