Same happened to us...also in Norman. It was our first year too. I don't know what to do. Will I be able to buy tomato plants from nursery to replace? Sorry guys, may be a dumb question, I'm just stunned. I didn't start seeds for fall tomatoes as our plants were still small. It's too late to start my heirlooms from seed, isn't it? Dangit. My poor kids..everybody worked so hard. Any advice would be appreciated as to the best course of action. We had heirloom tomatoes (several types), jalapenos, bell peppers, pumpkin, yellow squash, pole beans, sunflowers, watermelons, and american melon.

I was going to ask if you guys in Norman were okay. A friend of mine in north Norman had a lot of damage to her house and fence, and my sister told me she had drifts of hail in her apartment's parking lot. I knew someone's garden was going to get hit. :(

We're just getting a lot of rain out here in Blanchard right now. I was worried we weren't going to get anything at all.

I am so sorry for your loss too. I had all my fall tomato seedlings outside and before I could get out there to move them the hail was coming down hard. I don't know if we would have time to start tomato seeds in time to get tomatoes before the freeze. Hopefully there are a few transplants left even if they aren't the wonderful heirloom variety we were so looking forward to. My kids and I spent every morning and evening babying the garden and they are so sad. Good luck to everyone who had damage to their homes and garden.

I'm sorry to hear this. I was outside until it got dark and didn't even know y'all were having storms. Sounds like your storm was a doozey.

First, don't panic. In the morning, look at your plants. Often they are not totally destroyed. Clean up all the foliage lying on the ground, then look at what is still there (if anything) and come back here and ask any questions you need answered about whatever plants are left.

In the past, I have pruned off damage and had both pepper and tomato plants make a total recovery from severe hail damage, although in our case it happened in May, not later in the growing season in June. In most cases, I pruned off everything and only had a little 'stump' of a plant sticking up out of the ground a half-inch or an inch. After I cleaned up the foliage (if it is left lying on the ground it can be a disease and pest magnet), I fed the 'stumps' with liquid seaweed. Within a week or 10 days new foliage was coming out. Most of my plants recovered and regrew and produced just fine, although the harvest was maybe a month or two late. (A late harvest is preferable to no harvest.) Remember that even if everything above ground is damaged, the root system is still intact unless it was somehow twisted or pulled out of the ground.

I am not sure if plants will recover in this heat if they lost every leaf and limb. My plants had the advantage of it being not only earlier in the season, but the weather was cooler and milder too. Still, taking a wait and see approach for a week or so might not hurt.

If your plants are totally destroyed and you have to start over from scratch, you should be able to find tomato transplants sometime between now and mid-July. Down here in southern OK as well as in western North Texas, everyone from Wal-Mart to Lowe's to Home Depot still have plenty of tomato and pepper plants. You'll definitely find hybrids and some stores I was in earlier this week still had a few heirlooms like Brandywine, Bradley Pink and Arkansas Traveler. Our local Wal-Mart in Gainesville, TX, still had melons, squash and herbs in addition to the tomato and pepper plants.

A few days ago I posted a sequential planting schedule for now through fall. I've linked it below. In your case, since you are in central OK, you could plant using the first date shown on the calendar whereas folks down here in southern OK should wait until the later date.

If you have plants that survived and which are salvageable but which have open wounds like cuts on their stems, I'd spray them with Daconil, Serenade or a copper fungicide to try to keep the wounds from becoming infected with disease.

You have my sympathy. My garden takes a severe beating from large hail about once a decade, and it has been almost a decade since it last happened so we're about due here. We've been hit by six hail storms here this year, but only one of them did any damage to speak of and it was fairly minor and nothing at all like you're seeing. Hail is just one of the routine problems we face here and there's not much we can do about it either.

It is really frustrating when these things happen, but it is just a fact of life and we all have to accept that sometimes stuff like this just happens. That doesn't mean we have to like it though.

Power lines down all over around here. Our power has been out for a while now...luckily we have a couple of generators. Little fence damage...lots of limbs down. Hail everywhere...was pretty crazy.

Sorry to hear of the damage you guys have had.

It seems harder and harder to have a garden, or even make a living. My heart goes out to the younger people. Some times it feels good to be old.

I live just east of the Ar. Ok. line and have not seen any gardening plants at the stores. It may be the same in Norman.

Thanks okiedawn for your great advice. I will get out there in the morning and start cleaning up the mess and see what is salvagable. I won't give up on my garden even if it takes some extra tlc to save some of my plants. This was the first year I tried to grow everything from seed and I was so proud of the progress we were making. It will be ok and we will make the best of it. I will certainly take you up on asking any questions I may have.
TairaKL I hope your power comes back on soon. Let us know how your garden looks in the morning.

You're welcome.

If y'all have gardening friends whose gardens are intact, you could take cuttings from their tomato plants and root them. If you took the cuttings sometime between now and early next week, you'd have plants ready to go into the ground by July 1st.

Your first freeze date there should be around early to mid-November, so you have almost 5 months of growing season left. You likely would get fruit even from plants started from seed tomorrow, especially if you choose a variety with a DTM of 70-75 days or less.

Even if you cannot find plants (which would shock me), you could order them online although that's kind of pricey, or drive to Tulsa or Jenks to buy them from Duck Creek Farms or The Tomatoman's Daughter when they have their fall plants for sale. You might check with Robert and Barbara Stelle at Sunrise Acres Farm in Blanchard and see if they have or will have fall tomato transplants. Google "Sunrise Acres Farm Blanchard Oklahoma" to find their website.

The important thing (and y'all know it would just crush me too if my garden was destroyed) is that all of you are alright and so are your loved ones. In a year when the weather has hurt so many people and taken so many lives, you still are blessed that the damage wasn't worse. Try to keep thinking positive thoughts!

I've linked Gary's website below. If you look there, you'll see he expects to have fall tomato plants around mid-July, so he could be your source for heirloom tomato plants. You can e-mail him to see if his plants are on-schedule for July and where he'll be selling them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Duck Creek Farms Website

In the interest of equal treatment/fair play, since I had already found and linked Gary's website, I went and found Lisa Merrell's and it is linked below. Note that she'll have tomato plants available from mid- through late-July.

I know y'all may think that's too late, but it really isn't.

Remember that in the fall, we often have a cold night or two that brings the 'first frost' or 'first freeze', as the case may be, followed by 4 to 6 weeks of pleasant weather generally referred to as Indian Summer. So, even if your plants go into the ground in the second half of July, all you have to do is cover them up with blankets or quilts and get them through that first cold night or two and then it is likely you'd have several more weeks for the fruit to ripen.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Tomato Man's Daughter

I certainly am thankful that it was just my garden and my family is safe and sound. We have many family and friends who have completely lost their homes and pets in the horrible tornadoes we have had. I just had a moment of sadness but I'm good now. I will check out the sources for plants you have listed. I gave my mother many of my extra tomato seedlings and fortunately her garden has little to no damage. I will try to take some cuttings and maybe start some seeds tomorrow. Any advice on how to root cuttings? I have never done it before.

There are still vegetable plants at the Walmart at 1-40 & 15th in Del City and at the Lowes by Tinker in Midwest City. I think if I lost all my hard work to hail I would be sick over it. I am so sorry for you guys!

Like several have stated above I'm sorry to hear about your damage and loss. I suffered severe hail damage on May 24th. You have received some great advice. I haven't read every post as I just came inside. One option I didn't see mentioned that I used on one stem was to stick the stem in a some potting soil and let it reroot. I have seen I believe Dawn, Carol and others mention it before on cuttings. I never thought of it when I got home the night after the hail. There were several stems I could of rerooted. A few days later I was looking at a plant I really wanted to grow this year and the top was hanging by a thread and droopy a little when it got hot. I thought about reading about the rooting of cuttings so removed it and made a clean cut and put it in a cup. I have now moved it up to a large pot. I'm ready to harden it off again and transplant back to the garden next week. And it was a small cutting right out of the top of the plant. So if you have any large stems you could consider that. I know it has worked well on the one plant I did it on. Jay

Oh my....you guys must be around the Rock-Creek/Robinson area here in Norman. I'm farther North & East, but still too close for comfort. It got dark before I could see if my maters & peppers are shredded. They're NE of the house so I think they're okay. I can see the bean bed from the front window and it's okay. Car got put in the garage, though. Can't afford a new windshield right now. Only lost power temporarily, thank Goodness!

Boomer? Chandra? You guys okay? I hope you were far enough South that you were spared.

I've got some heirlooms going crazy, so if you need a cutting - post here and let me know. We'll hook up. I'm sooooo very sorry!!!

We all help each other out when needed so just say the word! We'll get through this!!!

Paula

Yes...Jay, I did the same thing tonight. I live in The Village and we had shooter-size marbles of hail and some approximating golf balls. My garden was pretty much ok, amazingly, but I did get one severed tomato stalk, clipped it and trimmed some of the leaves off, stuck it in Rootone and popped it in a cup...we'll see how that goes!

I'm very sorry for those of you that had extensive damage. I remember very well how heartbreaking it is to see your hard work and budding (and fruiting!) successes shattered in a matter of moments. BUT...we're thankful to live to garden again!! Good lessons for your kiddos - life's sometimes hard, but we don't let it get us down; we get up and get going again.

Sharon

I've linked a previous thread on starting cuttings, and within that thread from May, there is an even older thread from the Tomato Forum.

As Jay noted, if you find some broken off limbs or stems in the morning, you can even root them, but unless they are still partially attached to the mother plant, you won't know what variety you have. If the stems or limbs you want to root are muddy, wash them off well to remove any bacteria, fungi or other microbes that might be hanging out in the soil.

We have thunder and lightning here but no rain...a dry thunderstorm. In a county to our southwest (Montague, TX), the dry thunderstorms have started fires this evening. I hope that doesn't happen here. I'd rather have rain, but if hail is coming with it, I'd rather stay dry.

If this isn't the worst weather year for gardening in Oklahoma, I cannot imagine a year that was worse.

Here is a link that might be useful: Prev.Thread on Rooting Cuttings

Sorry it took so long to reply y'all. We've been getting everything plugged up to the generators and all that business. No power yet, but they'll get to it in the morning I'm sure.

I can not possibly thank you guys enough for the advice, encouragement, information, etc. You are absolutely right Dawn...everyone is safe and this year, that says a lot. It's disheartening, but we aren't giving up around here. Pretty bad year for gardening I'd say.

Once again: thank you to everyone who offered info, cuttings, etc. You guys rule. I'll survey the damage in the morning and probably have a lot of questions for you guys. If anyone has time to answer I sure would appreciate it.

okiedawn: you are a wealth of knowledge, but more importantly you are willing to take time out of your own schedule to share that knowledge. I sincerely appreciate it (and have many times while reading this forum).

Ihv2gratkids: I will keep everyone posted and you do the same.

I am so sorry, I would cry too. Long and hard.

I hope that when you take stock of the damage that there are many survivors that will grow and thrive despite the damage.

Hang in there!

Jo

Lots and lots of damage to veggies. Cucumers are probably gone.

My corn which tassled yesterday morning is now flat on the ground.

Green beans stripped of leaves.

My giant sunflowers look like 6ft tall sticks in the ground.

Tomatoes are not too bad, the bird netting that I put up help saved them. Still had lots of tomatoes knocked off and about 50 percent leaf damage.

Flower beds are 90 percent destroyed. Zinnas that just started blooming are now just stumps. Vincas are just stumps.

The hail knocked jalepeno peppers off the plants and even put holes in the peppers.

But my family and house are safe and thats the most important thing.

My neighbors lost their fence and two houses down there was a trampoline on top of a house.

Our place looks like it did after the ice storm. The limbs from what was left of the old trees came down on my newer trees. No plant left that isn't shredded. City came down the street with a front end loader pushing the trees out of the street. Whole area is a disaster!

All of the offices in downtown Norman are closed as no electric. My office had water come in the back file room. Not even any voicemail! (Wonder about that as it is Cox). Courthouse closed as lines down all around. Husband's office lost 20 windows. I think I will cry.

Sandee

I'm so sorry about all of the destruction. It's so hard to take, seeing months and even years of work, flushed down nature's toilet in a matter of minutes. :-(

I'm glad you're all unharmed, though.

Diane

Sharon,

I'm glad you had relatively minor damage. Hail damage is a good reminder to us all that sometimes all you can do is pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep on keeping on! There are so many life lessons you can draw from a garden.

Boomer,

Oh no, your poor garden. I am so sorry to hear that it was badly damaged.

I am glad to hear the bird netting helped provide some hail protection for your tomato plants. At least you didn't lose everything. Still, the loss of so many of your plants is sad.

You know, if the tassels didn't break off, you probably can straighten up the corn plants and still get corn. I've done that before. On everything else that was damaged, only time will tell but I have seen remarkable regrowth some years from hail-damaged plants that were just little leafless stalks sticking up out of the ground.

As you noted, the important things---your family and your home---are safe and sound which is what is most important.

The trampoline on top of the house reminds me of some high wind damage we had here in 2009 when some trampolines traveled a half mile or more across open pastures before coming to rest up against the fences along the interstate.

Dawn

boomer and Sandee...I'm sorry you guys had so much destruction in your gardens as well.

I've surveyed mine and have decided to take a wait and see approach. There are a few tomato stalks left and I believe I will feed them with liquid seaweed as Dawn suggested. That being said, fall planting dates are approaching, and I think we are going to focus our attention and efforts on that. Stuff happens. Could've been worse. Wish it hadn't been my first gardening season, but I feel worse for those who lost impressive gardens that were producing. If nothing else, I've learned a lot.

Oh no. I would be crying too. What a horrible thing. I didn't know about the storm until this morning either. All of you are in my thoughts. I am truly sorry.

Seedmama

I am crying too :-( Our Garden is completely shredded, chapped, and complete massacre... Tanu's wooden swing set flown away. Fences go damaged. All grapes vines gone. Look at the some pics (click on the links below for more photos)...

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but green house if still standing without any damages...
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Sorry for those who lost their loving garden and damages to property. I hope other the garden everything ok.

Priya and kids back home before the storm hit. They are doing fine. There was power outage, but electricity crew seems were working all over night and fixed the outrage.

I hope now beds are empty to prepare for fall garden. I will go with Dawn's fall garden post and see whether I can bring life to lost garden.

Take care -Chandra

Here is a link that might be useful: Yesterdays Thunder Strom and Garden Massacre

That's what mine looks like. Terrible stuff.

Dawn (or anyone else who might know): where can I buy liquid seaweed? Does it have to be online? I've searched the forum and can't find where to buy it around here.

My daughter and I woke up at the crack of dawn to head outside and check out the damage. We have a koi pond in the front yard and the fish are so scared they won't even come up to eat. The garden is almost a total loss. I have one raised bed that is up next to the house and the 6 tomatoes in itI think after some pruning will make it. All my zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, cucumbers, cantaloupe, eggplant, watermelon, most of my okra, most of my bell peppers, herbs, flowers, and the rest of my tomatoes are beyond help. What is left of the leaves are just shredded to bits and most of the plants just look like twigs sticking out of the ground. I tried to find some cuttings off my tomatoes to try and root but there wasn't much left. We replanted all of the warm season veggie seeds and will be making a road trip to see what transplants we can find. I'm still excited about our garden and we haven't given up hope on having an abundance of fresh produce. We will just need to have patience which I was not blessed with...lol
Good luck to everyone.

Chandra, OK, now I am crying too. I am so very, very sorry to hear your garden was destroyed too. Weather in Oklahoma is often so very cruel and we often find ourselves at its mercy. To have this wind and hail event mar the perfect week when Priya and the babies were coming home is especially disheartening.

Tell Tanu I am especially sorry to hear about her swingset. I hope y'all can find all the pieces and rebuild it.

Taira, if no one from your area sees your question and answers it on this thread within the next few hours, why don't you post a new thread specifically asking. In its own thread, the question likely would get speedy attention.

I am sure liquid seaweed and other liquid organic fertilizers must be available somewhere in Central OK, but since I'm down here in extreme southcentral OK (surrounded on 3 sides by Texas so I am way down south) I can't tell you where to find it there.

Down here, it is available in some Home Depots and some Lowe's and in most nurseries, especially on the Texas side of the river. At "our" Home Depots and Lowe's that we frequent, there usually is a small section of organic products that sits in its own little area. At Lowe's it is almost always outside along one wall of the Garden Center, usually right beside artificial garden fertilizers and bagged grass seed. At Home Depot it often is on a shelf inside near the section where they have lawn and garden chemicals and bird feeder supplies. In nurseries I frequent in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, most of them have an extensive organic section and it is there.

I know that there is an organic garden supply store in OKC because Susanlynne posted about it before. I bet someone there in the OKC-Norman area could tell you what it is and where it is, and you might call K&K Nursery and see if they carry it. Aren't they right there in or close to Norman?

Any liquid organic fertilizer would be perfect because organic products are not excessively high in nitrogen so they don't push excessive leaf growth. If you can't find liquid seaweed (sometimes labeled as kelp), you can use liquid fish emulsion or liquid compost tea or manure tea. I think it usually is easiest to find liquid seaweed. Sometimes, our local Wal-Mart has had Alaska fish fertilizer in the past which is fish emulsion. I don't know that I've seen it this year.

Of course, ordering by mail or online is always a great solution and even when you pay shipping it can be cheaper than driving all over town looking for a product that is hard to find. However, in case you have to go the online ordering route, I'm going to link the liquid fertilizer section from one of my favorite online sources, Planet Natural. If nothing else, you can look at it and get an idea of what the different bottles of liquid seaweed look like. The ones I tend to see are liquid concentrates that you add to water for proper dilution, and I usually buy Maxicrop because that's the one I usually see in stores.

If you can't find liquid seaweed (I could understand if you didn't want to run all over town looking for it in these temperatures), then you can use somthing like Miracle Grow for Tomatoes, but I'd dilute it to half its usual strength.

Iv2gratkids,

At least the koi survived!

I am convinced that gardening in Oklahoma turns us all into much stronger people because it teaches us to overcome adversity. Of course, I wouldn't mind if we'd get one year a decade in which there was no adversity to overcome.

I'm thinking of you all and hoping your gardening spirit is undaunted by this weather-related setback.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Liquid Fertilizers at Planet Natural

I'm sorry for your loss. Everything I had in the ground was obliterated (and I'm in Yukon!). I was able to get my most prized pepper plants under the eve on the north side of the house, which protected them for the most part. I have zero tomatoes left. This was also my first year starting from seed, and I was just about to go out and pick my first few ripe tomatoes when I saw the storm coming out of the south.

I'll definitely make the drive to Sunrise Acres in mid-July. They will have plants around then, as they just informed me via email.

Reading this while taking a break for lunch DID bring tears to my eyes. I'm among the most fortunate in Norman as far as the garden goes. And I'm grateful.

I was at the WM on 12th Ave NE last Sunday afternoon. Even though I do NOT have any room for any more plants, I always tour the garden center. They still had quite a supply of plants. Even had some tomatoes that were large and in gallonn buckets. These were all inside so maybe you all can find some replacements. K&K may have been spared a lot of damage too. I'll find out on my way home.

So very, very sorry for all of the loss that each of you have had. I can't do much in the way of peppers, but I can take some tomatoe cuttings for any of you that want one. I have rooting hormone just for good measure.

Paula

Lowes in Norman does have an organic section, but there's not much there if I recall correctly (it's along about half an aisle inside near the garden center entrance). I think I might have seen fish emulsion there, but I can't remember if they had liquid seaweed. I couldn't find it on their website. I hardly ever go to Home Depot, so I can't speak for them.

Do you think Marcum's carries organic fertilizers or veggie transplants? I know they had seeds, a huge selection of shrubs, and bags of compost and topsoil, but I didn't see what else they had.

Organics OKC is my organics shop of choice.

It's near Penn Square Mall. http://www.organicsokc.com/

Chandra, I'll bring tomato cuttings on Friday when I drop off the twin stroller. Paula is going to give you the peppers she has been holding for me for weeks. Now we know why I never picked them up. They were yours all along!

Living in Blanchard now I have seen a hard bad year last year... almost 100% of everything died in their pots or in the ground due to being forced to move Nov 09 at the spur of the moment and then not being able to find a place to live beyond family until July 10 - everything lived out in the heat and the cold for that time... and almost everything was gone but the seeds I had saved - when I got here to Blanchard I vowed I was not going to do anything ever again with the gardens... and did not for about 8 weeks... ;-) then something came over me and I started to dig out a garden.... and plant seeds... and take cuttings... and start to grow this and that - slowly.. this year the garden is still very young but things are growing and seeds came up -

There is something gardening... when you plant a seed or take a cutting or or or or ... you are having hope for the future = gardeners are eternal optimist... no matter the weather, the storm, the bug,,,,, we keep going and growing despite all odds... it is in our blood it is what we do!

Being in Blanchard - if anyone wants to meet up from Norman area I can get you some great plant cuttings - mostly local stuff and basic stuff (starting here with veggies, pass alongs, and natives only) but would love to share... something about seeing a little cutting in your hand - it always gives you hope!

Thanks you guys. I'll browse around when I'm out and about here in a bit before posting another thread. I have seen fish emulsion at Lowe's and now I think about it I believe I have seen kelp something or other. I'll probably scoot by Marcums and K&K if I can't find it at the big box stores. Prob start looking around for replacement plants as well. Thank you once again folks.

I'm so sorry about the loss of your gardens. For what it's worth, I lost a small garden last year when we had a house fire and the painters allowed overspray onto my winter greens, eggplants, peppers, peas and whatever els I had growing during March. Whatever they were spraying the roof with was not removable and I ended up losing all the vegetables except the pepper and eggplants, although I lost quite a bit of fruit hanging on the pepper plants. They did pay me for the losses, which surprised me. This was a small garden, since it's just my kitchen garden, only 2x 20 on the side of the house, certainly nothing like what you just lost, and of course greens are so fast growing that I wasn't nearly as devasted.
I'm sure you'll be able to do a fine fall garden but of course, that isn't always enough when you're depending on both seasons to fill the pantries.
Good luck and I hope the damage isn't as bad as it looks!

For anyone who may need to know (Ihav2gratkids and others): Lowes by Walmart off 24th has some good looking tomato seedlings that could be raised and transplanted for fall in mid-july as well as some older plants. The Green House (across from Atwoods on 24th) has many heirloom varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables. These are leftovers that were intended for the spring season and a bit out of shape, but perhaps a more experienced gardener than myself would know just what to do to get them back into shape.

Taira,

Buy those heirlooms if they are healthy and merely overgrown (for the size of the container they're in) or rootbound and plant them, water them and feed them. They might sit there for a couple of weeks because they were rootbound, but they will eventually figure out they're in the ground and have room to spread out and grow and they'll do it. I'd buy them in a heartbeat if they only look 'old' and 'tired' and not sickly.

Dawn

Not sickly. Will I be able to keep them going through the summer you think?

I think so. It depends on whether they are healthy, on whether you can keep them healthy and happy in our tough weather conditions and on whether you can keep the spider mites off of them.

Since the recommended fall planting date range begins July 1st, if I bought them, I'd pot them up into larger containers than they're in now, and since it is hot I'd go with 3 or 5 gallon containers. I'd water them every morning, and then check them every evening to see if they needed to be watered again. I'd feed them every week with a water-soluable plant food diluted to half its usual strength. I'd site them so they'd get morning sun and afternoon shade, or at least so they get shade during the middle of the day. I'd hold them in this situation for a week or two to help them get over being left in their current containers too long since they are 'leftovers' from the spring planting season.

I'd start watching the weather during the last week in June and hope for a 'cool' day to come along near early July. Then on the evening before that cool day, I'd transplant them into the garden and water them in well. I'd probably put a cage around them right away, and then use clothespins to clip a sheet or tablecloth or someting over them to give them a break from the sun for the first 3 or 4 days. Some sunlight would be alright, but mostly you want to shade them until they recover from being transplanted.

There are plus and minuses to being end-of-season plants, but in the case of the tomatoes, if they are healthy at this point, the pluses outweigh the minuses because they are a little older, a little stronger, have a larger root system and clearly have been well-cared for or they wouldn't still be alive right now. They are likely to adapt well and flower/produce fruit as soon as the temperatures fall back into the proper range.

If you're going to go out of town for a couple of weeks on vacation and no one will be around to take care of them, I wouldn't buy them because in our heat, they need daily care.

In May, I reached a point where I had to do something with my back-up plants. Nothing had died, so I hadn't had to use them to replace anything and they were getting way too big for the plastic cups in which they were growing, and they needed to either be planted or thrown on the compost pile. Well, clearly, I have a "more is better" attitude, so I squeezed in a new row of tomato plants in between an existing row of tomatoes and a row of pepper plants. I figured the worst that would happen is that they were too rootbound and wouldn't grow and I'd yank them and compost them.

For about 2 or 2 & 1/2 weeks, they just sat there. They didn't grow at all, but they didn't go downhill either. I handled them as I described above, except they obviously were in the ground and not in pots, and then they finally started growing. Though still significantly smaller than the tomatoes that were planted at the right time, they neverthe less look good and are blooming, If the weather permits, they'll eventually set fruit. In fact, they look healthier than plants that went into the ground in early April, likely because during a lot of the time they were held in cups, they were shaded from the sun for half of each day. So, while planting them late was a risk, I'm happy with the result and glad I didn't compost them. If nothing else, in July when the adjacent row of pepper plants is getting hot, cranky and tired, this last row of tomato plants will be tall enough to partially shade the peppers, which is a good thing.

So, my attitude is 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', and I'd give those plants a chance.

dawn

Thank so much, you all are pumping lot of info, encouragement and energy to regrow the garden. I hope fall garden will make over the summer loss.

Thank you Paula and Seedmama for donating all those plants. I have removed onions this morning, I will plant your babies in the onion bed. I am going name them as Paula's and Seedmama's Veggie garden. You have all rights to harvest the produce!

Regards -Chandra

Thank you Seedmama for stroller and plants.

TairaKL: I did find a couple of tomato plants and one pepper plant that looked decent. I will certainly check out the Greenhouse across from atwoods. I am up for a tomato challenge.

okiedawn: Thank you for all of your encouraging words and garden wisdom. I did little more pruning on my existing tomato plants. I searched for liquid seaweed but no luck. I did find some organic plant and vegetable food so I will give all my surviving plants a good feeding.

Hope every one's garden is on the mend :0)

I didn't realize Norman had such damage until I went to visit my uncle at the VA home Saturday and every one of their skylights had at least one pane broken out. I'm so very sorry to hear about all the damage & loss.

Reading this thread makes me reflect on our ancestors & the continual setbacks they faced trying to make a living farming around here. I think Oklahoma is friendly partly because of this history, and how times like this have taught us the value of neighbors & community.