My tomato plants got blasted by hail last Tuesday and I thought they were done for

I was out in my backyard in Denver checking my Brandywine tomatoes after a sudden storm, and half of them looked like someone took a hole puncher to the leaves. I trimmed off the worst damage and staked them up, and now a week later they're pushing out new growth like nothing happened. Has anyone else had to emergency-prune after a freak storm and seen their plants bounce back?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_emery10h ago

Oh man, hail is the worst. Same thing happened to my Cherokee Purples back in June after a crazy storm rolled through. I thought for sure they were goners but I trimmed off all the shredded leaves and gave them a little fish emulsion. Two weeks later they were bushier than before. It's like they know they gotta work harder after a beating.

the_robert7h ago

Yeah that's wild how they just push through. @the_emery did you do anything special with the fish emulsion other than just mixing it per the bottle instructions?

the_anthony7h ago

My Cherokee Purples took a beating last July and I did the exact same thing, trimmed everything ragged and hit them with a weak seaweed feed, they came back twice as thick within two weeks.

ryan3697h ago

I'm with you, my tomato plants looked like Swiss cheese after a storm, guess we're both bad gardeners at first.