Last Thursday Donny and I felt it was time to get all of my seedlings planted. We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, rosemary, oregano, marigolds, zinnias and wildflowers.

The purple beds were mostly empty because we were waiting to plant was was in the seed trays. I didn’t realize how many tomato plants I had started. Last year we our tomato plants hardly produced anything. I think we maybe got 5 tomatoes all summer.

This season we have an abundance. We made trellises for them out of the bamboo sticks and some wood I had. I was planning on putting tomatoes in the orange tire, but decided on the zinnias and wildflowers. Having the flowers seems to have helped with the pollination which is what I think was missing last year.

The summer squash is starting to fruit and so are the cucumbers.

So after we finished planting and weeding everything was looking good.

Friday night we got a storm. A big storm. The winds were insane and then it started hailing. All I could think about was our poor plants getting pelted to death. The next morning when I went to check on the damage, this is all I really saw.

My avocado plant that used to have dozens of leaves was now bald. That was the only plant damage (shockingly) so I’ll take it.

I cannot express how relieved I was.

Not only did the garden survive, but we are getting blooms on so many plants.

Started off as seeds and now look at the zinnias.

Our lavender plants are blooming and they smell so good.

I didn’t think the hydrangea was going to live through the winter but it did.

We also though the hostas were dead and even tried to dig them up. Ooops, they are just beautiful.

Now to just keep the bugs off everything.