I don’t want to belittle any suffering, any serious property damage, any major problem or cost or sorrow anybody suffered because of Hurricane Irene. I really don’t. I mention that because I want to tell you about the “damage” the storm left in its wake at our house which was very minor by comparison.
Here is what the hurricane did at our place: because of the strong winds, all my okra plants were seriously listing to starboard (or port…or both…I never can remember the difference). Some, the sturdier ones growing in heavy, clay soil,were only tilting at about a 45 degree angle. A few, startlingly, were leaning at about 90 degrees.
Irene washed and blow-dried the okra plants in the Lorelei
Where are the okra plants? (hover the cursor over this photo for the answer)
I was a tiny bit shocked when I first saw them leaning like that. I thought: finally they were starting to produce okra and now, this. Argyle Schield had groused in his August Garden Report that though vigorous, they weren’t making many little okras and I’m glad he did because that’s probably what made them start, just to spite both of us. My wife and I had even eaten some for supper while the storm raged (here’s a taste treat: take uncut okra picked no longer than 3 -4 inches, rinse with water, dust with corn meal (don’t use egg: the water will make enough stick) and fry it in olive oil for a couple of minutes. I think I’ll call it Okra Irene). But now in the aftermath of the storm it looked like I had a little cleanup operation of my own.
The answer of course was to stake the plants, as if I didn’t already have enough of a stake in my gardening venture. Thankfully, I found plenty of unused poles and bamboo, enough to meet the need. I was intrigued to discover that many of the plants didn’t need staking. I only needed to gently push them back to an upright attitude and press some soil and mulch in the little stem-sized trough they made while being blown around. I staked the larger plants to give me a little assurance their leaning days were truly over.
Backfilled, staked/ Standing straight/ Okra garden/ Ain't it great?
I promise this next bit of waxing eloquent will last only two or three lines. The okra plants withstood 50 mph winds over a period of several hours and were hardly worse for it. Sure, things like floods or a herd of stampeding cattle can ruin your plants for good but for the most part, a garden is very resilient. It can take a good deal of abuse, problems and imperfect treatment. It can even, like the okra, take a blow and survive and maybe, I hope like the okra will, continue to do well. I like that about gardens: they are resilient in the face of adversity. It’s a nice object lesson.
I’d like to close by commenting that shortly after righting the okra, I found myself writing the okra.
