How to deal with vegetables after heavy rain/hail?

Question

Tonight we had really bad weather (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - strong wind, extra heavy rain (and some hail). Rain and wind were so strong that even plants under shading net are now laying on the ground with leaves and stalks covered in mud.

Will plants recover themselves and is there anything I could do to help them to recover (except lifting and removing mud from leaves)?

Edit: I have two raised beds with different types of plants (one contains herbs, few flowers, and vegetables as radishes, carrots, parsley, swiss chard, few chili peppers. Other contains cherry tomatoes, peppers (both with supporting stakes - they seem pretty OK), basil, calendula...) Other plants like garlic, zucchini and squash are planted into ground. Everything that was growing close to the ground ie without support is now stuck to the ground.

Answer 1

It's always sad to have a strong rain or hail storm hurt plants. I hope your spirit recovers even faster than the plants!

You didn't say specific plant varieties, so this is some general advice. Propping them up and removing mud is certainly a good idea. If the stalks are too weak to stay off the ground you could try putting in a guide or stick and tying the stalks to that to help prop them up.

If any branches or leaves have started to tear off you should remove them as cleanly as possible. Give them a little extra attention to make sure they get the water they need in the coming days to make sure they have what they need to recover.

Plants will be weakened and have less disease protection. If you see any plants start to show signs of a fungal invasion, research how to either treat it for that specific plant type or remove the plant from the garden to prevent further infection of other plants.

Answer 2

I am impressed you put plants under shading netting. You should try Reemay over little hoop supports. Does this happen often? When plant material dies it will decompose. It helps to get rid of as much dead organic material as possible but fungus is always amongus.

Your plants experienced stress and all plants react differently. Yes, they are now far more susceptible to disease and insects. Some plants will rejuvenate, most will not.

Have you fertilized your plants at all? That makes a stronger, hardier plant. There is nothing you can do for fungal infections UNLESS it is powdery mildew. That you can treat after the fact, easily with water and milk and major aeration, blowing fans, thinning of plant material to allow air flow. Other fungal infections are systemic and a done deal. Fungicides are raincoats, primarily.

Does this type of weather happen often in Bosnia? I put a green house over my garden. Not taking chances with hail and heavy rain and wind. Just put dead stuff in your compost pile. The only fungus you'll be seeing right now is decomposer type fungi that belong in the compost, spores are everywhere.

Answer 3

I have often heavy rain and hail (also this year). Plants will recover. Just aubergine (which you didn't list) requires some stakes because of wind.

Usually plants will recover (but if they were still seedlings). For zucchini, quacks, tomatoes, and aubergines, I'll remove the damaged one: they will just slow down the production of new healthy zucchini.

For garlic (leeks, onions) I usually help them removing dirt on the leaves (when they are dirt and horizontal, so that they will return straight quickly).

Basil: you can remove the broken branches. Removing branches is routine, so no problem.

Cucumber, peas, and beans need eventually to be put again on stakes (eventually with new stakes, in order not to break branches putting them on old stake.

On strong hail, plants will be more damaged, but they will recover (hail usually come on hot weather, so they will have hot and sun quickly [few days] after hail).

Swiss chard: you will mainly eat the "rib", so not huge problems, remove leaves that are heavy damaged.