Our Cursed Garden

So we have had some bum luck when it comes to our garden at this place. The previous owners of this place didn't have your standard garden set up, they built mounds, long strips of raised dirt. Apparently, this enables you to plant a couple weeks earlier then your neighbour because your plants are slightly up out of the cold lower ground.  But by the time we got around to planting our garden the first time, the soil was really rather dusty and depleted, and so much of our water ran off the mounds and our plants were kind of stunted.

Not that that really mattered because that first year the sheep got in our garden and mowed everything down! We waited and waited for the sheep to be moved to a different field so we could put our started plants in the ground until we couldn't wait anymore.  And of course they got eaten. And then because we put everything in so late, what didn't keel over and die from the sheep was stunted and never reached maturity!

That was year 1.

This year, we cajoled and pleaded and whined and dug our own post holes (Post Hole Champion, right here!) and managed to put a fence in! Well part of a fence.... enough that nothing can get in our yard anyways, and it's the greatest! We even expanded the beds, put in a few extra ones, brought home loads of started plants (because the yard is sheep proof now!), got experimental with some planting techniques, filled or herb garden to the brim and wouldn't you know it hailed, twice in two days....

If your not an avid gardener, hail equals death to gardens.  We started a whole bunch of melons several weeks back, all excited that we could put them in on time this year and actually yield some fruit, and they are all destroyed. Our giant rhubarb leaves look like Bonnie and Clyde's get away car, completely full of holes.

And this wasn't small chunks of hail, these were huge, marble sized.  I realize that there are bigger out there in the world, but I don't know that I have ever seen bigger (Cue sexual innuendo...) Standing at the window watching the spectacle and it was like someone was throwing snowballs at us.  Chunks of our roof came off! I half expected to see chips taken out of my windshield...

                                             

Our poor Balou took shelter under the truck but the water puddled underneath.  So she managed not to get pelted, but still got soaked.

The weather forecast never said anything about hail.  It is predicting storms for the next 3 days, so we may have more hail to come.  I don't even want to go outside to try to assess the full extent of the damage until this string of storms has passed.  There are several things out there that we are certain are destroyed, but there may be some things that survived. We still have peas and kale and sweet potatoes to put in too. At least we'll have those!

Maybe next year will be our year! Then again, maybe there is a curse on our garden...?