
On Thursday - August 24th - the worst hail storm in memory for many Northfielders hit without much of warning. The storm started just west of Northfield, and moved Northwest to Southeast - striking our nursery - St. Olaf College and the Northfield Hospital, moving through residential areas, the Northfield High School, Bridgewater Elementary and the Hwy 3 South business strip.
The hail that hit here at the nursery was golf ball to tennis ball with a few softball size ones thrown in the mix. We lost the plastic and shade cloth on all of our greenhouses, and many of the plants received some damage while others were completely untouched. The damage to all of our vehicles equaled everyone else’s in the other areas affected by the storm. 
The storm came in waves - after the third wave we thought everything was over, and there was some damage but not alot of overwhelming hail. Little did we know that the fourth wave and most severe was on the heels of the third wave.
The top picture was taken right after the storm stopped, in one of our greenhouses. The middle picture was taken out of the window right by Leif’s desk as it was raining and hailing. The bottom shows the power of the hailstones having ripped off one of the branches from a Louisa flowering crab.
Our employees have been working very hard cleaning up the mess and removing the damaged plants. We continue to have a full inventory of plant material. It’ll be a while before we have the new plastic on the greenhouses and some of the other damage repaired but it’s business as usual!