Friday, August 26, 2011

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.

10 comments:

  1. That must be so hard, waiting for the storm, not knowing what it will actually do. I like your idea of picking any tomatoes with color on them, and maybe a few green ones. I wonder if it would help to put green ones with the ones that are closer to ripening.

    I'm glad you got to take some photos of the garden. Keep us posted when you can.

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  2. My heart is just sick for you and I don't even have words..so sad for all of the gardeners like you who put such love into their plots. Perhaps not all will be lost.
    I have heard people pull up their tomato plants and hang them upside down from the rafters in the garage and let them ripen that way.
    Please stay safe and let us know how you are. xo

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  3. I hope your garden weathers the storm! Keep safe!

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  4. Sorry to hear about the hurricane coming your way.... It is heartbreaking to see your garden crushed under the powerful winds (: I hope your garden somehow survives this storm. Stay safe !!

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  5. It's a lot of work getting ready for this storm. I have picked everything that is ready and some that was almost ready. There's nothing else you can do. When the storm is over...we may have a lot of green veggies to deal with!

    Stay safe!

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  6. Although the hurricane should reduce in strength by the time it hits us in Maine, we are still expecting extremely high winds and rain.

    I am harvesting all the tomatoes that have a little bit of color on them. They WILL ripen on a windowsill or counter top.

    I am think of you and all my garden blogging friends up and down the east coast. Please take care of yourselves and stay safe.

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  7. Irene is blowing about my garden as I type. I also moved all my plants off my patio and picked the green tomatoes for fear of loseing them. Stay safe! Hopefully, the damage will be minimal. The low growing plants should be fine.

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  8. I loved seeing all these photos of your lovely garden- glad they've downgraded the hurricane a bit. Hope we'll be fine. The rain just started here...

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  9. Your garden photos are beautiful! Hope the storm hasn't hit you too bad.

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  10. How did the tomatoes do? How about the rose? I have the same deal with my pumpkin plant: lots of blossoms, no pumpkins. It looks very much like yours and is the jack-o-lantern kind, not the baking kind. I figure there's time for some fruit to produce but I was also thinking I'd at least see signs of it by now. Also, I'm thinking the more leaves, the less likely there will be much fruit. Does that echo your experience? (This is my first year growing pumpkins). Hope everything survived the gales ok! Btw, beautiful beautiful beautiful garden you have. Thanks for posting pics!

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