Storm damage this morning

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Yes, Waco FINALLY got 1.3 inches of rain this morning, but we also had a few casualties from the morning storms..

My tomato plants got a little “wind blown” and were sagging a tad.
We had wind gusts up to 60 mph and a few of the tomato growths were blown over:

That is not really a “bad thing” because tomatoes pollinate via movement caused by the wind and not by bees or insects. As a mater of fact, the best way to increase production on tomato plants is to grab them and shake them around. The wind took care of that:

FYI: My tomato plants are growing in an old wine barrel that has been turned into a giant 30 gallon pot and the soil that I am using is a mix of “Lady Bug” organic rose mix, some native compost from my pile, greensand, lavesand, zeolite, expanded shale, and some dry molasses. The production on the cherry tomatoes this year has been outstanding!
Some of the newly harvested corn was blown into the backyard also. I’ll have a lot of debris clean-up to do this Sunday:

Our “Cousin IT” (the morning glory vine) took a big hit from the wind and had some trellis damage that shortened its’ height by about a foot:

Thankfully the trellis broke in a few places and my prized vine did not get severed, so it’ll recover and be OK. The Morning glory grows in a very rich mix of native compost, native soil, and expanded shale for water control. Its’ area is on a slight slope and drains so fast that I included the expanded shale into its’ bed preparation to retain what little water we get around here.

My Mammoth Sunflower has sprouted its’ first bloom after the storms and I cannot WAIT to see this “bad boy” grow!

Although it is only a few inches wide now, this species of sunflower will reach a flower-head diameter of over a foot in a few weeks! The birds will love it! {chuckle}
I cannot believe that this Sunflower has grown from seed to almost 10ft tall in just 2 months.. Amazing! The Sunflowers seem to respond to an organic program much better than anything else in the yard, with the exception of the St. Augustine grass in the front yard. I have been treating it with dry molasses @ 20 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. once every 3 months and it has gotten SO thick that it has become difficult to mow with a “push mower”.. {chuckle}
Gotta love it! :-)

• 31 Jul, 2009
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