Mother Nature Wins As Always.

Yesterday, the weather was insanely warm, like 80 degrees warm.  But down here, we all know that if it's warm like that when it shouldn't be, you watch the skies for strange clouds and bad weather approaching.  Yesterday they said we would just get some rain, but OH NO!!  It wasn't just rain, we got wind!!  Lots of gusty, strong WIND!! So last night at around 9:30 pm when the wind had really picked up, I had a moment of panic and ran downstairs and out the door to see that my greenhouse had been blown over. All my newly started seedlings were flipped over every which way, but somehow I had enough sense not to unzip my greenhouse to try to salvage anything. I dragged my greenhouse into my screened porch and prepared to catch whatever I could as they fell out of the greenhouse. I was able to save my kale but my collards, chamomile, and impatiens all ended up on the ground. My columbine had also been disturbed but was still contained in their Ziploc bag for the most part. 

I spent most of the evening trying to replant what I could and coddle the survivors. This morning, I checked on the seedlings...

Most of the kale seedlings just needed to be repositioned in their container but the collards, I had to scoop up what seedlings I could find on the porch floor and try to quickly replant them.  They looked o.k. this morning.  What made me mad the most was that some of the seedlings were just about to sprout their first set of true leaves.  I hope they haven't been too damaged.  I ended up replanting more imaptiens seeds....

Thankfully, the impatiens hadn't sprouted yet.  I'm just glad everyone is back indoors now either on my kitchen windowsill or by a south facing window.

I potted my columbine and I am crossing my fingers that I actually planted the seeds- the seeds are tiny and black so you can't even see them.  My chamomile went from the first seeds to sprout to this...

On a happier note, my peppers have sprouted and are doing well.  I was SOOOO tempted to put the peppers into the greenhouse earlier yesterday and I am so glad I didn't.

My basil has come back after being infested with gnats and my carnivorous plant has reduced the gnat infestation dramatically. By the way, sundews are much better gnat trappers than Venus fly traps.

And my mint has gone CRAZY.....

From this experience, at least I've learned now to tie down my greenhouse on windy, stormy days, and in the process of replanting new seeds and seedling in toilet paper tubes, I've learned that it's much better to cut the rolls in half instead of using a whole tube.  It seems to waste a lot of good seed starting mix and it seems the seedlings' roots don't fill up the length of the tube anyway. And maybe it's time to invest in grow lights! :-P