Preparing the Garden for the Hurricane

With Hurricane Irene expecting to make landfall here by Saturday night, I spent most of the day in the yard getting ready for the storm. This meant putting away the umbrella, barbeque grill, garbage cans and lawn furniture in the garage. Along with all the patio plants. Let's just say it's pretty packed in there now.  Thank goodness for the garage.

I also took this opportunity to walk around the garden and take some "before the storm" photos.  The garden is finally starting to look good, it had a rough start earlier in the summer and things were taking it's slowpoke time to grow.  But now everything looks so lush.  I am so sad that the storm is going to wreak havoc on all the plants.

The back wall has all the cucumbers and string beans growing up the picket fence and everything looks so green and amazing.  They are saying on the news that we should expect 60-70 mph winds which bums me out because I fear that it will knock down all the plants.  A spring / summers worth of hard work to be knocked down in a day.

Here is the pumpkin plant, these plants are just giants.  And I have yet to see a pumpkin forming!  Lots of male flowers but hardly any female flowers.

Here's the pumpkin plant spilling out of the garden and taking over the lawn.  I was planning to let this plant grow as large as possible to see if maybe a pumpkin would emerge. 

The heirloom tomato plants will not stand a chance to Hurricane winds. 

More tomato plants in the raised beds.Yeah, these will be a toppled mess after the storm for sure.  I don't know whether I should pick all the green tomatoes or leave them on the vine.  What to do, what to do.  Will they all turn color indoors if I harvest all the green ones? I normally don't pick or eat green tomatoes.  But I don't think they will survive on the vine with this storm coming.

Here is a Rutgers and a Paul Robeson tomato plant.  I definitely will pick the ones that have a blush color so they can continue to ripen on my window sill.  I am so loving how large these Paul Robeson tomatoes get.  They are easily 1 pounders!!  I will so grow these next year!

Here are the Rutgers tomatoes up close.  These beauties are gorgeous.  I love that these tomatoes are named after my Alma Mater.  On the Rutgers website it says that these tomatoes were "introduced in 1934 by Rutgers breeder Lyman Schermerhorn as an ideal locally well-adapted and improved "General Use" tomato for processing (canning and juicing) as well as fresh market."  I hope they taste as good as they look!

I saw this pink rose blooming in the rose garden.  It's so pretty, and has no clue what's coming.  Maybe I should cut the rose and bring it inside.

I harvested these from the garden today.  I only picked the ones that were ready to harvest or had fallen to the ground.  Irene may be coming, but at least I won't go hungry.