When Disaster Strikes!

Quick! What's the worst possible thing that could happen to a gardener? (other than an unexpected hard frost)...

I can top it! :) yes I can! lol!

How-about having your entire greenhouse turned upside down like a salt shaker? While full of all your precious seedlings? Every...single...one? Yup! It happened folks!

this is where the greenhouse was positioned (except with the cover on because it was cooler)

This is where the greenhouse was after it blew over (except it was resting on the roof, not the side, and the cover was on still)

 It happened on Saturday! (So not even on the hurricane-force winds, Sunday.) Saturday was just a nice day. So I had all the plants outside for a bit of hardening off...  I had some lady friends over from college for our roughly-annual get-together. We were spa-ing it up like this.

 when all of a sudden someone said "uh krysta, I think your greenhouse just blew over!

Here... allow me to explain with a diagram I drew in paint (because paint is the best)

 

 

And naturally, because I'm super lucky... nothing decided to slide off the shelves in some manner of landing right side up... nope... somehow every single tray of plants, also flipped upside down... completely upside down... every...single...one... let me explain with another diagram...

Oh yes it did! In an instant, I saw months of work (and blogging) flash before my eyes! I took a deep breath (which felt nice cause my face had that charcoal mask on it), and sighed a (surprisingly non-swear'ey) sigh... I went outside with my mask on, and began to assess the damage, and gently flip over pot-after-pot-after-pot. Clinging to what labels I could nearby, hoping they were the correct markers.

 

I didn't take a photo of the crime scene. It was to grotesque for even the least green thumb among us.I couldn't do that to you. (plus I was busy getting any exposed roots out of the sunshine).

But after about an hour (with help from a few friends who were over thankfully!), I managed to find a home for most plants, and got everything inside. We had to leave for the next portion of our SBC ladies date (which was dinner at Cibo's and the WSO Cirque du la Symphony...BOTH AWESOME!) So I did what I could... I watered the heck out of everything, and left it out of sunlight, or plant-lights. 

Warning! The following images are graphic and may cause panic if you have a green thumb! ;)

The next morning, bright and early, I sorted through the plants. I tried as best I could to put like-kinds back into packages together, but mostly I was sorting through what could go back outside, and what needed some major/minor plant-surgery from me. Most plants had been very dehydrated (from my neglect of them during the party) when the greenhouse flipped over, so thankfully their stems mostly bent instead of snapping in half, and being game-over for the plants! This was a game changer for me! In the end, many plants were salvageable! :)

The above plants, though a little bit traumatized, didn't have any other damage except a bit of labeling mysteries.

But the state of the plants on my table, were another story... What also worked in my favor, is that my tomatoes were all over-due for a transplant anyways. So while they were already traumatized, I decided to undertake the large task of transplanting. Every plant on this table got a transplant actually. It was the best way to ensure they had dirt, labels, and any bent or bruised stem was buried in soil or removed.

Because i've been examining these pretty closely, I was able to re-label most plants pretty easily. The mystery lies in the 3 tomato trays and 1 cucumber tray which had no labels in it. I planted several varieties of each, and at this age, the plants are indistinguishable from each other! I still gave them a name though. For one entire packet of tomatoes, I called them "Russian roulette #1" and the other I called "roulette #2". That way I knew that all 12 of those plants were of the same variety...whatever they were. And through elimination, I've narrowed them down to 1 of 3 varieties for each tray! So in the end, the damage control was mostly work, but not damage! :) lucky me!

The above image shows a tray of Amish paste tomatoes after transplant. Tomatoes like having their roots disturbed. But they do still get  "transplant shock". You'll notice how wilted and pathetic they look. This is why I wanted to also jump-on the transplanting while the tomatoes were already traumatized from the flip.
Below, you can see 24 hours later the exact same tray of tomatoes has perked right up!  The leaves are still curled but that'll wait till the plant is growing new roots out of the buried piece of stem.

So now, I have some bricks and gym weights on the bottom level of my greenhouse! (Like I've said a few times, live and learn! Green thumbs are grown, not pre-existing!). This should prevent another disaster like that from happening again... or at least it would take a lot more than one gust! :)

Until next time, keep it green! (and keep it weighted to the ground!!)