Hail damage

It is summer, summer in Alberta and probability of summer thunderstorm is pretty high, but is is possibility that one of these "severe" storms" will bring hail with it.  That was the reality on Saturday for us.
Dark clouds came with roars of thunder and lightening, next came rain, getting heavier and changing into hail.  Hail went on for at least 2-3 minutes, it was not big in size ( perhaps due to efforts of hail suppression program -info below) but big enough and duration that resulted in some damage to veggies in our garden (see pictures below).  Here in Alberta we have a hail suppression program that is financed by insurance industry and its mandate is to reduce hail damage.  We had some significant hail in the past that resulted in very high damage and insurance companies decided to run  suppression program.  The program works as follows.  When a significant storm clouds are detested and their intended direction pints toward more densely populated areas (cities), plain(s) are dispatched and they spread some form of silver iodide (or similar compound) that inhibits formation of rain and potentially of hail, but much smaller in size and softer.  In fact, one can observe reading from their Doppler radar and activity of both storm and cloud seeding aircrafts (here is link for curios http://www.wmiradar.com/alberta/latest_loop.gif).  It is animated picture loop but provides pretty good information.
One of my friend ask me why I keep tunnels covered during summer, well, this is the reason to protect some of the crops from hail damage.

Garden photo update (after the storm)

 Rhubarb suffered a bit of damage as well.

 Potato leaves were almost decimated (at least showed a lot of damage due to density)

 On the positive note, I am getting pretty good size tomatoes.

Too much of rain?

No, not really, I rather have rain after such a dry spell in June, then no rain.  The only complaint I have (no one will actually listen or do anything about) is the amount of rain per time.  It looks like yesterday, we got 21 mm of rain in 5 minutes (for those who operate in imperial that is 3/4" ).  It was a lot in short period of time, bit of hail but small and soft.  It just too quick.  I rather stick to slow drizzle, but take any moisture.  My grass has shown sign of recovery and looking much better, still in some places, not 100%.  My little apple tress is full of apples (as shown i picture) and now will need support as branches are bending under wight of apples and this will get worst, as the apple fruit gets bigger.
Weather is very unsettle overall. In the past four days I think we had tornado warning in three of those days.  Some parts of the city got pretty nasty storms that included hail, Lucky, so far we just got a lot of rain at once.  I do not have to water garden and that is a bonus.

Photoupdate

Finally had a few moments and phone in my pocket so took some pictures in the garden. 
Things are growing well and with warm weather growing fast.  Seeds that I placed in the ground in place of frosted seedlings are germinated and growing nicely.  Big rain and subsequent little rain, provided enough moisture to stimulate rapid growth.
Potatoes started to flower and are huge

Cabbage in the tunnel

 As mentioned before, cucumber

 Tomato plants

 Beans full of flowers

 First tomato fruit inside the large tunnel

 I could not forget about rhubarb

 This is lettuce patch inside small tunnel

Success ...

Finally, we were able to grow cucumbers in our tunnel, I mean actual cucumbers that one can eat.  I will post picture shortly.  I checked this weekend and noticed full size cucumbers tucked under the plant and was amazed by the size, I mean, was amazed as I tried before and got only small size and not even close to decent size.  This year I think, we will heave pretty good cucumber crop.  Despite late frost, they are producing and producing well.  I am pretty excited about this as this is first time I managed to get to this point.
Almost forgot, after rain, things started to show and there is a bit of optimism related to garden and yard.  Spend some time on Sunday aerating lawn in anticipation of more rain, though, rain did not materialize.  We might have  thunderstorm today and hopefully this will help.  Grass looks not too bad but still showing sign of distress (yellow patches).  Bad news, couple of plum trees might not survive as late frost weakened them and they look pretty dead.  I will give them chance and keep them till at least next spring, but little hope they will survive.
That is the nature of growing things at high elevation and possibility of killer frost in June.

Rain

What can I say, prayer were heard, it is raining and ground is wet. Nothing to add, very happyalongwith my grass that started to show a bit of green out of that happiness.

Euro Soccer (football)

I forgot to mention, due to recent tournament, I might re-focus on soccer(football) for a little while.  Great soccer games, unfortunately mostly played early so I do record and watch them in the evening.  Yesterday highlights, Russia is out, Welsh players have eliminated Russians and are moving up.  So far, not too many surprises (perhaps should mention Albania great showing, big surprise here), Lame Portugal, really Ronaldo was , lets say boring and useless.  It looks like most of the star players don not shine during early stages of the games.  All I can say, game are pretty decent, good level and great entertainment.

Weekend work

So this weekend I have decided to tend to my tomato plants inside of the large tunnel.  Rather than leaving them with limited support cages, I installed strings for supporting growth of the plants upwards.  Got a hint from my sister who is rather accomplished gardener in Europe.  In fact I visited her last week and was amazed at her garden, but she has it easy given the elevation of +- 250m above see level.  She is about month ahead of my garden, as her tomatoes outside have already fruit the size of small apples.
Anyway, we did remove some "suckers" and  bottom branches on plans that have flowers and hopefully this will spur faster growth and fruit development.
Yard is in terrible shape due to lack of moisture. We had rainfall Saturday night and in all only got 2.09 mm according to my weather station gauges. That is nothing.  It was also exceptionally windy whole weekend and that result is further loss of moisture.  Grass look terrible and desperately waiting for any type of rain, forecast call for 60% chance tomorrow, hope this will materialize.  All we can do is hope now.  This year el Nino deprived  our location of rain and usually, June is the wettest month here.
Will keep my fingers crossed for rain.
My Already distressed plum trees were infested with aphids, so had to spray them with insecticide soap hoping that this will remove that infestation.  Will have to repeat this treatment few time over next few day to ensure success.  They do not look well, these trees partially due to lack of moisture, as they are unfortunately outside of sprinkler reach so I need to start manually watering them.
So it was busy weekend in the garden but also, due to father's day, busy doing things with my kids, including them working on garden chores.