Texas Storms

You out there in Texas; how do you protect your gardens from the storms and hail. We had some last night for about 15 minutes. Any larger or longer duration more damage would have been done. Should I put up row covers every time they predict bad storms?

I really have no idea how those out in WTX do it, if it's not a drought it's wind. I know it's beautiful country, and I would love to get out there one day, but as far as living, I'm perfectly happy with the NE TX climate. I would love to live closer to the Longiview/Tyler area, or even Lake Palestine, but alas hubby is happy here.

Many here have hoop houses, and use the rebar in the ground as Mel mentions in his book, plus anchor them down to the boxes and that helps. Or you could build the cages that were shown in the book and put plastic cover over them, make them whole box size or put 2-4x4 boxes on and 8x4 bed. With wind like that you would need to attach them to the box though.

Unfortuantely, gardening, like farming, is a gamble. You just have to hope and pray and if you lose your crops you start over. Thank goodness we are working on a smal scale, and most here are willing to chip in with a few seeds to help those who suffer a loss to restart. Hopefully someone will hop in with more helpful ideas soon.

You can also check the Southwestern Desserts forum thread to see if anyone has any ideas there.

Oh and if I have not said , I'm saying it now!!!!

I only have 4 small areas of SFG. When plants are smaller I toss a green row cover over them and put bricks around the edge to anchor it. Eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, pole beans, cukes, I make sure are well tied to their supports. If they're still small enough, I'll also put a row cover over them to help protect from the hail.