It's such a joy for me as a garden owner to see the plants I've been nurturing growing so lush and healthy. I'm thrilled to bits seeing my butternut squash plants thriving after I moved them to a sunnier spot. Here's a pictures I took last Wednesday after I gave them their second round of fertilizer. I'm really proud to see them getting bigger by the day and can't wait for the day they start blooming.
Besides the butternut squash, I've been keeping an eye on some other plants that I seeded just a few days ago, and they're already starting to sprout.
Everything was going fine until last Thursday night when something unexpected happened, causing some of my plants to get damaged (not all, but some of them got really messed up). I never thought this would happen to my plants.
Thursday night at exactly midnight, it went down. That wooden tree trunk I mentioned a while back finally fell and hit my house, causing some damage to the roof. Apart from the roof damage, the fallen tree also wrecked the plants I had next to the house. I was so sure that spot was safe and everything would be okay. But boy, was I wrong. The fallen tree made me feel both sad and mad. I've been looking after these plants every day to keep them safe from my mischievous chickens, but in just a few seconds, they were crushed by the tree branches.
I snapped a pic that night right after the tree fell and its branches hit my plants.
Just like this broken and damaged plant, it breaks my heart to see what I've taken such good care of go to waste. Although some of the damage to the stem will recover, it won't look the same as before and will take a long time to grow back.
Besides the damage to the plants, the makeshift support I made for the climbing plants a while back also got wrecked. I had to rearrange everything, or maybe replace it with sturdier bamboo or wood. I moved the plants to a different spot and pulled out all the stakes still stuck in the ground to prevent further damage from the fallen tree trunk.
Finally, We managed to cut down the part of the tree trunk hitting the roof into smaller pieces. I cleaned up all the mess the next day because I had to wait for the sap on the cut tree trunk to dry up.
Even though the plants affected by the damage suffered severe damage, they're still growing upwards, continuing their growth despite not being in the best condition. By evening, I noticed the leaves that were wilted before looked a bit fresher (except for the broken stems).
Today, I moved them back and arranged them in their original spots. I also did some minor repairs on the plants that could still be salvaged. I also started planting some new plants in the beds I made nearby. This incident taught me a lot and reminded me to remain patient and pay more attention to my surroundings. Though it might take a while for these plants to fully recover, I'll keep monitoring and caring for them. The rest, I'll leave up to nature. Hopefully, from these broken stems, new branches will sprout, bringing even more lushness to these plants. I'll be happy to share updates on my garden's progress after this incident.
