Garden finished early

Sunday was a great day, got the back yard all mowed and cleaned up. Called a friend of mine to help move my apple crusher/press out under the large cottonwood tree. got it all cleaned up for our big apple cider party this Saturday. Covered it with a tarp to keep it clean (lucky). Monday I cleaned both back patios and cleaned up the furniture and my wife handed me the window washing stuff and told me I wasn't done yet. About 2:00 pm it looked like it might rain. At 2:15pm large marbles started falling from the sky, the wind picked up over 40mph and it was a white out with hail. It lasted about 30 or 40 minutes and then nothing.  Two out of four skylights busted, don't know about the condition of the roof but the garden was pretty much stripped. Kale and chard gone except for one Scottish kale that was unfazed. Tomatoes and peppers bruised, some with holes. Apples bruised but should still be OK for cider. Any plant with a leaf is pretty much stripped.  Greenhouse survived but I don't know why, hail was almost covering the inside with the windows that were open. Vehicles were all OK as only my farm truck was outside and it was protected by the barn/garage. I have taken in all the tomatoes and peppers that look salvageable and see how they do. Don't know if we have enough time for anything to grow back as normal first frost is late Oct. 

Sorry to hear about the number the weather did on you.

On another note, I don't know what an apple cider party is, but it sounds fantastic! Love the stuff.

You could still plant baby bok choi and lettuce. Both can be ready in a month. Maybe even kale and chard to overwinter?

The apple cider party is about 30 people coming over. We make a huge pot of green chili and everyone brings something including apples. I will buy 3 bushels, one other guy has an orchard and he usually brings 5 or 6 bushels. We pour the apples into wash tubs, clean out the worms if any and make apple cider. I have gone to the dairy and purchased a block (108) of half gallon jugs with caps and we make cider until we're done, then we split it up. then we eat and dr...other things. A bushel will produce about 2 gallons from a hand press. Now if I can just get the patio's clean, I recleaned them up this afternoon and the wind came back up and all the leaves and twigs are back. I quit

Sounds like a fun way to use the harvest. My understanding is that most apples grown and planted in America originally were for cider.

And you've stumped me again -- I've heard of white chili, and we all know the regular chili ... and I've heard of green salsa (salsa verde), but I've never heard of green chili. What's that?

John, That was one destructive hail storm, and only 15 minutes of warning. I'm sorry for the crop and skylight damages.

I guess you have to live in NM or CO, I thought  everyone knew what green chili is. Every year we buy a bushel of roasted green chili that we freeze in bags of about 6 each. Around here the Anaheim is the mild, big jims are the medium hot and the Pueblo chili is the hottest.  We buy the big jims. Basically you caramelize onions, brown cubed pork, add green chilies, stock and cook. Some put tomatoes in it but it is basically chili with green chilies.

So sad for your garden... that must have been some intense storm.  We're fortunate that we usually only get very small sized hail here and mostly in the winter.  

Last spring we got hail at midnight and I didn't think anything about it, forgetting that my seedlings had just been planted.  The hail froze around  some of them and I lost a couple.  It could have been much worse - dumb luck I guess  

Take pictures at your cider party and post them, we'd love to see them!

John, If you have a recipe, could you post it under Recipes on the Home page? It sounds like chile verde but with green chilies instead of tomatillos. Thanks

I will post a recipe but there are a million versions. We have a basic recipe with many changes that we have made over the years. I will take pictures but no guarantees, windows 8.1 and I are not friends. Also my new comp. does not like my Nikon.