Hail damages gardens, crops

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hard on Thermopolis and Hot Springs County with hailstorms that ravaged the area.

The reports have focused mainly on the damage to homes and vehicles, but the hail damaged things that we may not have really thought about.

For instance, Monica Jones always has tomatoes at the Farmers Market for sale. This year, however, Jones says she may not have as many tomatoes to sell because of the damage to her plants from the two storms.

Veva Blakesly always puts in a huge garden at her home, but she didn't survive very well, either.

"My tomatoes are twigs," she said. "It knocked off all the little green ones and most all of the leaves. Same with the pepper plants. Some cucumbers are still trying to make it, but I ended up buying some two-inch seedlings to see if I can get a few cucumbers this year.

"Last year's hail totally shredded everything, so this is two years in a row. I got zero strawberries off my 12-year old plants. They were mutilated. I did have a bumper radish crop and the flower gardens took a beating, but seem to be flourishing after I trimmed and cleaned up."

Sonja Becker, who owns Becker Family Stock Farms said her garden got "pretty messed up." In addition, the hail took the seed heads off the hay field and the tops off the alfalfa. She estimates the hay crop has now been cut by about 39% of last year since they hadn't cut it yet when the first storm hit.

Perhaps the most tragic for those of us locally is the Hessenthaler farm owned by Kent and Stacy Hessenthaler.

"The corn is not a total loss," Stacy said. "Right now it looks like about 50% of the corn plants were totally destroyed. The remaining 50% were severely damaged, but hopefully will produce some corn. It will be much later than normal and the ears may not be as large.

"The pumpkins were almost totally destroyed, but are showing some signs of life. Unfortunately we are not sure if there is enough growing season left for any pumpkins to mature."

Hessenthaler also said their second cutting of alfalfa was totally destroyed.