Well, a few of you have been asking. So I thought I'd get a little post together to show you how my Straw Bale garden is fairing. If this is news to you, here is the original post, and here is some info about straw bale gardens.
Anyhow, I went outside on one of the glorious warm days we've been having of late to take some pictures. And everything is coming up so nicely! 
And with so very little maintenance! Just the way I like it. I think this is a cucumber transplant that we bought from the organic nursery. Its already got a flower on it, so I'm very pleased.
And here is the Buttercrunch Lettuce and Merlot Lettuce coming up from seed. Excited about that. Though its all going to be ready at once and then you'll be happy to know me because I'll be, like, the Lettuce Fairy.
And my little wee tiny Basil's are coming up. I cannot WAIT for basil season.
And this tomato transplant already has a li'l tiny tomato on it!
And this red pepper plant already has a pepper!
Anyhow, this all makes me very happy. I turn on the soaker hose to water it once a day, and thats about it, except going outside to gloat over it all every now and again. There has not been one weed, though there have been tons of mushrooms, but those are normal and seem to be passing. Also, half my bales are a hay/straw mix I am now finding out (didn't know that when I bought them, may have to use a different source next year) and the hay is starting to sprout along the sides rather greenly, but I don't really care, as it is not affecting my crops. Just making the bales look like chia pets. I'll mop the sides with vinegar eventually and that will be that.
Yep, feeling pretty proud of myself. Can you see where this is going? Yeah, pride goes before a fall as they say. And we had a bit of, erm, weather today. Crazy weather. Tornado warning weather. And blessedly, we did not have an actual tornado too near here (though there were some further north and west of us) but we had BUCKETS of rain, and also - hail. Lots of hail. Great big marble sized hail. The big shooter sized marbles, not the cute little ones. This was serious hail.
Anyhow, as the boys and I stood in the house, being amazed (and deafend) by the hail hammering down on the roof, the Little Dude turned to me and said with great concern "Will this hurt your little plants?" Yes, yes it did. My poor little plants. Since I'd just taken the photos of my growing-oh-so-well garden just a few days ago, I was able to make some composite photos that show the before and after the hail in my garden. So here they are.
Behold the healthy, happy little zucchini plants....
and see how thoroughly askew and bedraggled they are after 20 minutes of hail.
And here are the Chadwick Cherry Tomato plants, proud and strong...
...and here they are after taking a frozen ice pellet drubbing.
And the Brandywine Tomato transplants, grown from seed...
Och, me poor, poor Brandywines!
I don't know if these Eggplants will recover.
And my little spinach seedlings are pretty bruised. Though I think they will struggle on.
That hopeful little tomato that I was so pleased about at the top of the page is long gone, as is that single pepper. All in all it is quite a mess, the larger plants getting the worst punishment. The little Basil and Carrots seemed fine. And the Kale, though very droopy will be ok I think. Its a very hardy plant.
I'm quite curious to see what, if any of this bounces back. How hardy are these little seedlings? Will I get any tomatoes or eggplants out of those crushed plants. And should I stake up the floppy little zucchinis and cucumbers with toothpicks and kebab skewers or what?
In our "regular" dirt garden, the lovely raspberries got worked over pretty well.
And the rhubarb was positively shredded. Good thing you don't eat the leaves.
Even Mister Gnome could not stand up to the onslaught.
And this mess of greenery is the self-planted mint and dill that my dirt garden is just hemorrhaging these days. This stuff literally grows like weeds, I planted it last year and it just came up again all on its own. Though I'm not complaining. But after the hail beat down the whole are smelled deliciously of mint and dill. And wet dirt. It was quite lovely. One of the weird upsides to the storm.
Now of course all this is not the end of the world. Its just a garden, and while the food from it is nice, we don't depend on it to live. And there are people today who lost roofs and had trees fall on their cars, so that puts my small garden losses into perspective.
And the other upside is that the valley flooded, which is no great thing in and of itself, but it did give us a bit of insight into the wildlife down there. 
The ducks that we hear a lot of, but don't see very often finally revealed themself and there is not one, but TWO nests worth of ducklings apparantly, which the boys found very exciting and much happy time was spent at the windows watching two sets of Mammas and ducklings as they paddled about at the edge of the lawn looking for dinner. They were nearly impossible to get a picture of, as they were very shy of people, and I only have a mid-range lens, so despite the fact that I hid and stalked and walked aroudn in the rain, the one above was the best I could get.
Right, at least all this happened early in the season, so if I need to replant I guess I can. Time will tell.
