When hail prevails...or does it?

These WERE my eleven/twelve-foot "Sunzilla" sunflowers. We had a massive hailstorm that reeked havoc in my garden.  (Sorry for the pic quality...it was terribly humid the next morning).  I love giant sunflowers.  They can survive most hail storms...they just tilt their heads down and take a little beating.  This was no little hail storm.  

For the first time, it caused a little bit of leakage into our basement.  All this happened while I was away from home.  But the heroes of the day were my children.  Just before I left, I had them cover up my front yard garden with tarps. I have hail cloth over my tomatoes.  It shouldn't have been a problem.  My oldest was on the computer in the basement and my second oldest was going to show her how much hail there was at the basement window when she stepped into a puddle.  The children snapped into action.  The main portion of the basement is the library.  They all had to physically move the heavy shelves away from the window and the puddles on the floor.  My son jumped outside and into the window well to remove all the hailstones and water to help stop the flow inside.  The girls put out towels and fans.  The towels that were soaked were then washed in the washing machine.  Color this mama proud!!!  They really made good decisions and they saved the library!!!

Like I said, I also have hail cloth over the tomatoes.  Well, hail cloth doesn't work if the hail comes in sideways...ummm, seriously, it came in sideways!

The tomatoes here next to the chunnel were about 6 feet tall.  Next year, I will bring the hail cloth down on all sides and enclose everything...it's kind of ridiculous, but a gardener's gotta do what a gardener's gotta do.  More hail cloth is on my Christmas list!

This was a big squash plant--again, under the hail cloth, that got decimated. But good news, it's back and doing pretty well!

Considering what happened to everything else, this is 2 of 4 brussel sprouts I have.  They endured and took quite a beating, but they are doing fine.  I am anticipating those fantastic brussel sprouts after the first frost!  So excited!  The hail comes...the hail goes...you just have to keep on growing.  Every year is a learning curve!  I hope you are having better weather where you are at.  It is now scorching hot again.  Oh well...my peas have all sprouted and I'm getting ready to seed more lettuce and carrots and greens.  Next post...what I did with all the damaged goods!  Blessings to you and happy end of summer!!!