Personally, I'd just go with new ones for the more badly damaged ones. Tomatoes are pretty tough and can come back from a lot of damage but they're going to be spending a lot of energy mending and recovering so will be set back for a bit. When replacements are that inexpensive, I'd definitely just buy new.

Sorry to hear about the hail. When I saw the red on the radar screen over towards your part of the state, I wondered if the thunderstorms were producing hail or high wind.

I agree with Diane that since you have a reasonably-priced source for new plants, you'd probably get earlier production if you start with new, undamaged plants. Having said that, though, it is still very early in the season and the damaged ones have a lot of time to bounce back, especially since the plants were so large to begin with. Usually when hail pounds my tomato plants, it pushes the harvest back a month as the plants regrow and heal.

The other issue, and this might be more of a problem in your normally-wet county than my normally-dry one is that everywhere on the plant where you had damage, the 'cuts' are sort of a gateway that could allow disease to penetrate. So, in that sense, the damaged plants could have more disease issues later. Also, the very act of receiving hail damage stressed the plants and pests always seem drawn to stressed plants, so that's a consideration too.

If they were precious one-of-a-kind varieties you'd raised from seed and could not easily replace, I'd say prune off the worst of the damage, feed them liquid seaweed (it is a miracle drug for sick and damaged plants), give them a couple of weeks to recover and then plant them in the ground if the weather is cooperating.

I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong way to deal with hail-damaged plants....sort of six of one, half a dozen of another. Flip a coin. Take your chances. Earlier in the season it may be better to replace those with the worst damage, and if it is mid-season you just have to cut off the damage and hope for the best. Since it is early in the spring, and future hail damage is STILL a possibility, if you choose to replace the damaged plants, why not prune back the damage, hang on to the plants and have them for "back-up" in case the unthinkable happens and an April hail storms damages the replacement plants. This is Oklahoma, so anything can happen.

The year that bad hail wrecked my garden, the harvest was later than usual but it also was much larger than usual, as if the plants were overcompensating for the damage by producing like mad. So, you just never know.

Dawn

Thanks for the advice.

I hate it that I had invested so much in these already. I had re-potted them into larger pots about 4 inches across and 6 inches deep. They were looking very good, and almost all had blooms either open or forming. I will probably keep about half of them. I will still end up with too many in the end. Looks like once again there will be no benefit to getting started so early.

The hail broke the windshield of one car near here, so it must have been pretty big.

I don't know, I had pretty good mators on some damaged ones before. I would let them grow. The way they always put shoots out the sides, you can train one as the main one, and see what happens?

Moni

Scott,

If you think your going to have to many anyway, I say work with what you've got. Don't throw them away, we work hard trying to be frugal in finding material to amend our garden, cheap ways to build a trelles or something to use as a rain barrel etc..........

Eventhough it is inexpensive to replace them it is money out of your pocket.

I remember my Granny whipping her tomato plants. She always had great results too. She could grow anything. I spent a few summers with her in Abilene Tx. and one summer we canned six cases of tomatoes and made just as many as chow chow (tomato relish).

Just my two cents worth.
Teresa

Teresa,

The phrase "I remember my Granny whipping her tomato plants....." made me laugh. I shake them to increase pollination once hot weather arrives, and I'm pretty sure that's why she was 'whipping' them. The image of a granny out whipping her plants was a funny one I probably won't be able to get out of my head!

My grandparents always had a great garden in sandy soil in Texas and they did it very frugally compared to what I spend. I think they were able, most years, to grow almost all their own food. They always had a freezer full of food and an extra deep freeze or two in the garage or a spare room.

When they lived in the country, they had a HUGE garden and my granddad even grew his own popcorn--and lots and lots of it. He kept it stored in a big glass jar--probably a gallon-sized one. We kids just thought that was wonderful.

For years I wondered why I couldn't duplicate the texture of my grandmother's frozen green beans. I finally figured out that their really soft texture must have resulted from her not blanching them before freezing them, and I always blanch mine. LOL

I don't can much any more....and if I want to do it at all, I'm going to have to use the old stove (now stored in the garage) because my new stove has a ceramic top and you aren't supposed to use it for canning. I do freeze and dry tons of stuff though, and store root crops in the tornado shelter. We're still eating veggies from last year.

Dawn

Dawn,

I guess I did paint a funny picture. LOL I should have written that she used a switch to whip the tomato plants with. Your right though, shaking them was probably used for the same purpose.

The whipping with a switch, much like a hail storm, would cause the plant to get busy repairing and producing. Basically a scare tactic. LOL

Most folks don't use that method anymore but it is effective. A friend of mine who had a garden several years ago would grab the tomato plant by the bottom of the it's trunk and pull up slightly and shake it. He said it made them think they were dying. LOL It served the same purpose. I think I'm showing my age......

This is a great topic. I normally read and read the threads. I don't say much.

Teresa

Teresa,

Some people will whack caged tomato plants with a tennis racket or sturdy stick as they walk down a row of caged tomato plants. That also shakes up the plants enough to loosen sticky pollen and induce pollination.

Some folks on the Tomato Forum say they use an electric toothbrush (a rechargeable one, I assume) to pollinate their tomatoes. They hold the vibrating brush close to the flower (I don't know if they touch the flower) and that shakes or vibrates the flower enough to induce pollination. (Personally, I think they must have way too much time on their hands or a whole lot fewer plants that I have.)

I don't think I'd do anything to disturb the roots in our climate, though, because summer is so hard on the plants anyway.

You should continue reading but keep talking too!!!! Lurking and reading without writing is like sitting beside the swimming pool and never jumping into the water. So, come on and jump in! : )

Some of my favorite threads in the past have been the ones on rainy or snowy days where we can't go out and garden, so we start talking in depth about this, that or the other. I especially love the threads where we talk about "old folks" like maybe gardening or farming neighbors we knew when we were kids, or grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, etc. who were gardeners and from whom we learned or by whom we were inspired. Sometimes we have the most amazing conversations about the old days and the old folks. The older I get, too, the more I find myself becoming more and more like some of those old (and I mean that in a very respectful way) southern ladies who lived around me and gardened when I was a kid.

Dawn

Dawn,

My Granny (that's what we called her) and my mother were the only people around that did any gardening to speak of. Granny was a widow, so she had to garden just to have enough to eat.

We would slice cucumbers and sit at the picnic table and munch on them in the evening and visit. Usually her next door neighbor would come out and join us and I would sit and listen as they talked about this and that.

My kids wouldn't know what to think if I suggested sitting down at the table to munch on cucumbers. LOL

Great memories, I hope I give my grandkids memories they can remember with love.

Teresa

Hi. I just joined the garden web and am excited to have a place to talk to fellow garden enthusiasts.
We live in Colorado at 7300 feet. I have done a bit of floral gardening but decided to start growing vegetables too. With a very short growing season, I convinced my husband to buy me a little greenhouse where I can start seeds and then transplant veggies into my raised beds.
My tomatoes were doing beautifully until we were hit by hail nine days ago. A lot of leaves and buds were stripped from my tomato plants and I even had a few little green tomatoes before the hail. Most of the little tomatoes have fallen off. I'm assuming from the stress of the storm? I have a lot more growth and a lot more buds this week but I'm just wondering if I should cage them for additional support? They're all currently staked.
BTW, love the granny whipping image...: ) love the laugh.
Karen

Hi Karen,

Welcome to Garden Web and to the forum.

I would agree the tomatoes most likely aborted from the plants because of the stress of losing so much foliage.

I definitely would cage the plants. It will help them stand up to wicked wind, hard rain, etc. Staking works well up to a certain point, but I've never found staking alone able to support plants with lots of foliage and fruit.

Be sure you stake the cages, or a hard wind can bring them down too. There's nothing worse than walking outside after a storm and finding all your caged plants lying on the ground.

The granny whipping image was an instant classic we won't soon forget!

Dawn

Wow! That is so cool about whipping the tomatoes. I never heard of it. It could be good therapy on grumpy days!
Bella

I've been enjoying this thread immensely and it has brightened my day. I am sorry to hear about those who've suffered vegetable damage on tomatos and other crops from these recent violent storms. On the plus side of our sometimes adversities, I recently read that the various insect and other attacks will induce plants to form natural phytonutrients and phytochemicals to counter these attacks. I don't know whether that's true or just an urban legend, but it's certainly something to think about. For that reason, I sometimes allow one or two of my plants to struggle a bit. An example was when my first trap zuke plant was attacked by an unknown, (to me), pest, and instead of pulling it, I left it alone, and just kept an eye on it, then shortly after a bunch of lady bugs appeared and began working the zuke plant. This was good news to me since I figured it would increase my lady bug population, which it appeared to do. Then, soon after the lady bugs came, the zuchinni plant began to show evidence of healing and began producing fruit-something it had not done previously since being attacked.
From this, I have learned to be a little patient, and not freak out over every apparent damage done, whether by insects, some mysterious disease or whatever, and try to allow mom nature to do her healing when possible. My guess, is that barring the unusual, it will usually work for us.

Maybe I'll wander outside now and spank some tomato plants :)

Barbara

Barbara,

There is indeed research that shows plants grown organically have increased levels of certain vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and phytochemicals. One belief is that these organically-grown plants produce these substances to help themselves fight pests and diseases on their own, since they aren't being 'helped' by synthetic pesticides or fungicides. This research is one of the reasons many people believe organically-grown food is healthier than conventionally-raised vegetables.

For many years now, research has shown organically-raised produce has higher levels of some vitamins and minerals. It was long suspected that phytonutrients were found at higher levels in organic produce, but they were harder to measure. In recent years, scientists have developed ways to measure some phytonutrients and their research is showing more of them are found in organic produce.

Another interesting fact found in research is that conventionally-raised produce has higher levels of water and one hypothesis links the higher water levels to excessive use of some fertilizers in conventional growing.

I've linked an old study from the early 2000s that discusses the higher vitamin and mineral levels, and mentions that emerging research in the early 2000s was showing higher phytonutrients in organic produce. Later research has supported that conclusion.

As for spanking the plants, it works. Any technique that moves/shakes the plants helps move around the pollen within the flowers and that improves tomato fruitset. High temps and high humidity make tomato pollen 'sticky' and 'spanking', shaking, etc. helps move that pollen around.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Produce Studies

Well I've had a great tomato season so far. Whipping, spanking, beating or shaking them has been a success. Production has slowed because of the very hot weather we had last month but looking much better now.

The only problem I do have, 1 of my toms is almost 7ft. tall and it has out grown it's cage. Even with reinforcing with stakes it is getting taller. I've considered laying it down but no room for that because I planted my toms closer together than I would normaly do. My garden is rather small compared to most of the ones I've read about here on garden web.

I don't have a celler or any type of building I can use for storage so we eat or I can or freeze everything.

I have had a few dissapointments, the spuash went to the dogs. Pole beans NEVER made one bean. I have bush beans planted now. Peppers have done okay but not nearly as well as I expected.

For me this year was an experiment. I'm happy my Granny's whipping toms story has given you all a laugh or two. She would have loved that.

Did you whip your toms today ?

Teresa

Teresa,

With the tall tomato plant, you can let the uppermost branches cascade back down outside the cage. If they begin to have a heavy fruitset on those 'cascading' branches, you'll need to use something to tie them to the cages as they grow downward or the heavy weight of the fruit can break the branches. Or, you can top your plant by cutting off any growth that extends much beyond the top of the cage. Topping the plants may lead to the formation of additional side branches and suckers, but it will eliminate the issue with cascading branches that might break.

I have a Tess's Land Race Currant that is in an 8' tall cage and it already has climbed out of the top and has branches that are cascading back down. With this particular variety, cascading branches normally don't break because their fruit load is comparatively light. They have oodles of fruit, bu since the currant-sized fruit are so tiny, they don't produce enough weight to break a cascading branch.

Did the squash literally go to the dogs....as in the dogs picked it and played with it? Or, was it too watery from all the rain so you gave it to the dogs because of poor flavor/texture? Our dogs think tomatoes and certain winter squash, pumpkins and gourds are just big "balls" for them to pick and play with, so I have to watch them if they are near/in my garden.

For me, pole beans produce better in fall and bush beans produce well in spring/early to mid-summer or in fall. None of the beans I grow produce well during the hottest part of the summer though. I believe George has said some pole beans (maybe all?) are daylength-sensitive so that explains why healthy plants won't set pods sometimes.

Your peppers may do better in the fall. Some years mine do well all summer and other years only in the fall. This year has been a great pepper year here so far--maybe our best summer ever. I think for it is has been a combination of luck and cool nights/rainfall at the right times in June and July. Usually it is too hot here for the sweet peppers to do very well until fall, but this year has been great. Hot peppers do well in the heat so they've been more consistent here, year in and year out.

I haven't whipped my toms today.....but the winds last evening whipped them pretty well! The tomtato plants today, after a couple of days of rain and some cooler temps and some clouds for relief from the sun, look better than they have since early June. They look so good that I am going to find it hard to remove many of them to plant fall tomatoes once I fill up the fairly small space I had saved for fall tomatoes.

For a year that started off rough, our veggie garden has been amazingly productive. I am hoping the fall plants (and the plants carried over from spring to fall) are as productive, and if the rains continue, I bet they will be.

In May, with severely waterlogged soil that seemed like it never would dry, I was tempted to give up on the garden. I'm glad I didn't because it all worked out very well once the waterlogged soil dried up--not a perfect year, and not the absolute best year ever, but close! How odd is that? In May I would have said that the garden was doomed and wouldn't do anything at all this year and I would have been so wrong.

Dawn

Dawn, how come you aren't supposed to use ceramic top stove to can?

Kristin

Kristin,

There are several technical reasons, but the main one for most of us is that it states in the warranty that using the ceramic-top stove to can using a pressure canner will void the warranty.

One of the technical reasons is the way ceramic stovetops heat up. Once they reach a certain temperature, they shut off and don't go any higher and this can lead to a failure for the pressure-canning process to work properly and kill any bacterial present. Essentially, the burner doesn't stay exactly the same temperature every moment...it cycles on and off.

Some manufacturers say you can pressure can on a ceramic-topped stove if you use a flat-bottom canner and it is almost impossible to find a flat-bottomed pressure canner.

There's more info on the attached link about the ceramic stovetop/pressure canning issue. Or, you can go to the Harvest Forum here at Garden Web and do a search on the topic and find the backthreads related to this topic. Some people who post on that forum, by the way, defy their manufacturer and pressure can on the ceramic stovetop anyway. We bought a pretty expensive Bosch ceramic-top stove and I am not going to do anything to void my warranty though.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Canning On Ceramic Stovetops

Dawn,

My dogs didn't eat or carry off my squash,they just haven't produced well at all. My squash and pumpkins would bloom but not set. I think lack of pollination is the problem. We did however, have to fence our garden in just to keep the dogs out, simply because we have a lab that loves to dig and two small ones that like to follow him everywhere.

I guess I really messed up on the beans. lol I'll know better next year. Just hoping I can get some from the bushes I've already planted. I grew some bell and jalapeno peppers last year on the patio last years and they did okay during the summer but produced very well when cooler weather came along.

I think I'll cut the tops off the tall tomato plant (I think it is Homestead) and see what happens. They have huge toms on them now and I would hate to lost them.

Our garden was water logged too in the spring but didn't show much water damage because it is planted on a slight slop. I think that helped more than anything.

We had a very nice day of rain yesterday so I'm headed out to check and make sure everything is okay.

Teresa

Guess I've been missing this thread. Reading it has brought back memories. My grandmother and another elder lady when I was a kid would have me or someone else take a lariat rope and whip the plants when they got fair sized. Said it was something like a hail and triggered something in them and they would quit growing so much and set fruit. They also gave them a sweeping everyday which is the same as the shaking. I use brooms or sticks to brush mine night and morning as I walk through them if they are dry. If damp I leave them alone. I have seriously thought about giving a few that isn't setting a good roping. And might still. Not much to lose. Jay

Jay,

Now, don't you go abusing those plants just because they haven't set fruit. Every day that passes they are one day closer to setting fruit.....unless you are looking at their DTM and your first average frost date and thinking that time is running out. Isn't it too early for time to be running out?

Dawn

Dawn,
I have a few I may go out and threaten them a little. Maybe swing it and hit them on the tips so that know it is time to get serious.

Cut off some leaves tonight. Looks like with the weather change I have some Bacterial Spot. I spent some time going through the sites and feel it is. That was my first thought when I saw it tonight. The picture at the A&M sites matches perfectly. Will spray with copper in the morning. The plant is a Gigantesque and is getting lots of fruit set. Sure don't want to lose it. I will keep the leave trimmed off. I had debated what to spray with when I sprayed with Daconil the other night. I sprayed with copper last week but received 2 inches of rain two hours later. So imagine it didn't have time to do much. I have two different coppers but think I will use the Kocide 2000. Jay