Tears of frustration...

I feel very cross at myself, and feeble for being so upset over what is really not important when there are many many more terrible and heartbreaking things going wrong in the world.  But I couldn't stop myself from weeping sorrowfully when Monty uttered the words, "This is the peak of the year..." on Gardener's World...

The reason for my self pitying wallowing?

You know the huge electrical storm over Somerset yesterday? The one that resulted in the power being shut off to all the stages at the Glastonbury Festival and performers being hustled off stage for fear of lightning striking?  Well of course (being not at all that far away) we got it too.  Massively.  We were out, but experienced the incredible thunder and lightning and immensely forceful downpours....it all seemed very exciting... until I got home.

Approaching the house, I could see puddles of huge oddly oval hailstones the size of my little fingernail, still piled around unmelted (in these temperatures? It is still warm enough to wander about in a sleeveless top at 8pm!)  I thought I better check the chickens and investigate the garden...

These were the 'proud as punch' pictures I had taken that very morning, ready to upload here and discuss how amazingly well the 'no dig' experiment was going:

The sprouting broccoli end of the no dig brassica bed

No dig bed cavolo nero (and lettuces shot to flower, they obviously didn't like the hot dry period even protected under the micromesh, though the brassicas have thrived)

No dig legumes/curcurbits bed - looking from the runner bean end

Wigwam of climbing pumpkin 'Munchkin' 

Squashes 'Turk's Turban' and Butternut 'Hunter', looking like they've settled in and started to grow on despite the dry weather - the healthiest squashes I think I've ever grown.

Courgette 'Alexander' looking stunning, happy and fruiting already! I love the glory of the yellow flowers

Well, that'll teach me for feeling pleased with myself, won't it?

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Hailstone storms in June do not agree with beautiful, burgeoning fresh growth on vegetable crops it seems. The scene of devastation so few hours later is unbelievable....

Leaves of both courgettes terribly damaged.  I had to harvest the wee courgette visible this morning as it was pitted with bullet like holes!

Here's the 2 squashes seen before in all their promising glory - leaves totally shredded by the hail.

Unfortunately I didn't have the heart to photograph all the damage - basically the runner bean leaves, dwarf bean leaves, all pumpkins, courgettes all had their leaves torn to shreds.  The sprouting broccoli and cavolo nero had 50% of their leaves torn into holes and the large outer leaves which looked so gorgeous and healthy in the morning were snapped off!  I have harvested them to cook tomorrow.  I just hope hope hope that these plants are established and growing well enough to quickly regrow their leaves and not shoot to flower from the stress or just die.

In the morning I had taken lots more photos of the whole patch, greenhouse and the dahlia bed, to remind myself how well everything was doing.  I don't feel like going over them at the moment, even though most other things seemed to have survived relatively unscathed (although there are leaves, pine needles and petals all over the place that have been knocked off).  Once I've cheered up and regained my doughty gardener's pragmatism I will perhaps upload them then.

So for now, a few pictures taken the days before the storm, to remind me that the calm will return again xxx

"Cat in Dawn Light" taken by the Engineer from the hammock during the 'Big Tent Sleepout'

"Boy and Cat"