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Summer Gardening Guide: 9 Steps to Survive the Heat

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Gardening in a hot summer climate might feel impossible, but there are things you can do to prepare for the rising temperatures. And in today’s article, I’ll tell you the nine things that I’m going to do to get my garden ready. I want to help you succeed, even if you’re gardening in tough conditions. 

Harvest Cool Season Crops

As summer approaches, it’s time to get cool-season crops harvested. The flavor is better if you can pick them before it gets hot. I sowed onions in the cold season. And now the tops on my onions have all fallen over and I’ll be pulling them out in the next few days. I’ll take them inside to cure so they can last for months. I grew lots of potatoes in grow bags this season. 

Harvested them all. All that soil that was in the grow bags is now being used as mulch on some of my fruit trees and it’s back in other containers. Fava beans grew well this year and there was plenty to harvest.

When the plants were done, I chopped them off and then added them to one of my beds. Topped all of that with compost and some raised bed mix to get it ready to plant. All of those plants will break down quickly and add organic matter to that bed. I had Itoi onions growing throughout my garden. I pulled them all and now they’re curing inside. 

left the bolted cilantro, dill, and parsley in the garden. They are attracting so many beneficial insects like ladybugs, and lacewing. You can find every stage of ladybugs on those plants. I wouldn’t dream of taking out this plant. Every year, few plants seem to get aphids. But I don’t worry too much because all of those ladybugs will help me out. 

Understand the difference between Hot and Cold Season Crops

Here in the low desert, we have a warm growing season followed by a very hot growing season. And there are some crops that really only like that warm season. 

Image of Warm season crops

Things like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, bush beans. They grow best during the warm season. How well they do is often determined by how long it’s warm before it gets hot. It’s important to get those warm-season crops planted early in the season as soon as we can after our last frost date so that they can grow and finish up before it gets hot. 

Harvests are beginning for some of the warm-season crops like squash. Here’s a quick squash lesson for you. There are male flowers and female flowers. The male flower has a long stem and the female flower has a bulbous stem that looks like the fruit it will turn into. Hopefully, the bees transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower. 

Once that female fruit is pollinated, it will grow and develop. But in some cases, there may have been some issues with pollination. For that, the growth may not be good. If you’re having problems with your fruit withering and not forming well, you can take matters into your own hands and hand pollinate. The easiest way to do that is to remove a male blossom and then pull back the petals. We need to transfer some of this to the female blossoms. Later this morning, these blossoms will close, so it’s important to do this first thing in the morning.

Give Crops Plenty of Soil

Healthy soil is crucial if you want your garden to grow well during the hot summer months. At the end of a season, the soil level in your beds is going to go down as that organic matter breaks down. So before you plant, it’s always a good idea to add in more organic matter, usually in the form of compost.

How do I add soil?

So as my cool season crops finish up, I add more compost or raised bed mix to that bed to fill it up. Generally, I do this a little bit at a time because all the different crops are finishing at different times. 

Plenty of soil in your beds means that your plants have access to all of the moisture and nutrients in that soil. Healthy plants will grow roots that are nice and deep. Deep roots will better protect those plants during the hottest months of the year. As your cool and warm season crops finish up, pull back the mulch, and add some compost before you plant anything else.

Apply a Thick Layer of Mulch

Let’s talk about mulch. Mulch is important any time of the year, but in a hot summer climate during the summer, it’s essential. At other times of the year, I usually have a one to two-inch layer of mulch on my beds. But to get ready for summer, I pile a thick layer of mulch on all of the crops in my beds. 

If I’m planting seeds, I put down a light layer and then wait for the seedlings to emerge, and then I’ll put a little bit more on. Once the plants are a few inches tall, that’s when I like to get that mulch in place. three or four inches is not too much mulch.

Why is Mulch Important?

The top reason is that moisture that is in the soil is going to stay in the soil longer. It’s also going to cool the soil and help regulate temperature. It’s a barrier between that hot sun and your soil. A thick layer of mulch means that your plant’s roots are better protected.

Get the Watering Right

Watering is the next essential part of getting your garden ready for summer. It’s so important to have some kind of watering system in place so that your garden can get regular water. 

Aim to water your garden deeply so that those roots can grow nice and deep. The frequency of watering will increase during very hot, dry weather. As the humidity comes in later summer, you may not be watering quite as much. Right now, I’m watering my garden every four days. but I’m also monitoring that as temperatures climb. It will probably go every three days and then eventually to every other day during the hottest months of the year. Your garden might be different. Pay attention to your soil. If there’s still moisture in the top levels of your soil, you don’t need to water. But if the top couple of inches have dried out, it’s probably time to water. Even during the hottest months of the year, I’m not watering every day. 

I have really good soil. My beds are nice and deep. I have a nice thick layer of mulch over my beds. I don’t need to water every day. Part of getting my garden ready for summer is checking the watering in every single bed. I’ll check the water pressure and make sure that it’s working. Over time, some of the holes in these watering grids can get clogged with hard water buildup. So, check that all of the holes have water coming out of them. If they don’t, there’s an easy solution. If a hole is clogged, I use a push pin to clear it out.

Be Thoughtful About Containers

As temperatures climb, be thoughtful about which containers you’re gardening in. It is tough to garden in small containers during the hot summer months. 

They heat up more quickly and dry out more quickly. As cool season crops finish up, put your smaller containers away until temperatures cool off again in the fall. If you are gardening in containers, there are a few things you can do to help you be more successful. Choose the largest container possible. That way your plants have access to more soil. Group your containers together. They can have an insulating effect that will prevent some of that heating up and drying out. Move the containers to the coolest spot in your yard. Make sure that they don’t get too much sun. 

And finally, add Oyas. An Oya is filled with water and that will give your plants access to all of that extra water when you’re not there to water it. It keeps them from drying out as quickly during the summer. That way you may only be watering your containers once a day instead

Evaluating Shade & Add if Needs

Prepare your garden for summer by evaluating the shade needs of your garden. You may already get afternoon shade naturally and you don’t have to add it. If your garden is in full sun during the hottest times of the day, consider adding shade. I like to add shade cloth when temperatures are consistently above 90 degrees because shade can cool the area by about 10 degrees. Fruiting plants often stop fruiting at about 90 degrees and adding shade gives me a little bit longer for those fruit plants to continue producing fruit. I like to use white 50% shade cloth for my garden. 

Black also works. Use what you have. It’s best not to have the shade cloth touching plants. And it’s not about completely encasing your garden in shade. It’s essential that there is still good airflow. But think about how you can block some of those late afternoon rays. Once you know where the shady and sunny spots are in your yard, be thoughtful about where you plant your vegetables Take advantage of the areas in your yard that receive shade naturally. Those are going to be the key spots for successful gardening during the summer. Get creative when you’re thinking about ways to add shade.  It doesn’t have to be permanent. It doesn’t have to look great. The key is to shade your plant so they can make it through the hottest months of the year. When temperatures fall, you’re going to take that shade cloth back down. 

An easy way to provide shade is by planting sunflowers. Branching sunflowers are going to provide the most shade. You can even remove the lower leaves if they get in the way so you have shade exactly where you want it. Branching sunflowers will last all season. If you are going to grow sunflowers, grow them on the outsides of your beds. Those roots and trunks get large and will take up a lot of space and crowd out all the other plants you have growing. 

Plant Hot Season Crops

Let’s talk about the crops that love the heat. Those are the ones you want to focus on for those hot summer months.

Image of heat loving crops

There are so many varieties of heat-loving beans. Plant a wide variety in your garden and see which ones you like. I usually grow pink-eye purple cowpeas, tepary beans, and yardlong beans. This year I’m adding several varieties of those to see which ones we like best. As it nears summer, the earlier you can get these heat-loving crops established the better. That means they have deep roots in the soil and they will grow well. Get them planted as soon as you have space in your garden. Some of my favorites are things like okra, amaranth, sweet potatoes, basil, Armenian cucumbers, tithonia, and roselle. 

Believe it or not, there are so many crops that grow well during a hot summer. Although it’s hot, it’s still important to add a variety of flowers and herbs. I enjoyed the snapdragons that grew over the spring so much, but it gets too hot for them. So now I’ve planted a bed full of zinnias. Pretty soon I’ll add the net trellises. And these zinnias will grow up and I’ll be harvesting lots of beautiful cut flowers. 

My favorite heat-loving herb is basil. I add it everywhere around the garden, usually at least one basil plant in every bed. I don’t need to use all of the space in my garden to grow food over the summer. As some warm-season crops and flowers finish up, I’ll plant a cover crop in these beds to keep the soil alive, cover the soil until you are ready to plant in the fall. Heat-loving cover crops would be things like sweet potatoes, tepary beans, tithonia, some of those same crops that we talked about earlier that love the heat.

Avoid These Thing

Once it gets hot and days are consistently over 100 degrees, there are a few things I won’t be doing that will help my garden survive summer.

Fertilize

I’m not going to fertilize. When you feed a plant, you’re telling it that it’s time to grow. Sometimes it’s all they can do to stay alive over the summer. Many plants like peppers and tomatoes go into a little bit of dormancy over the summer and focus on staying alive. Feeding them would be too stressful. After topping my beds with compost, I don’t add any additional fertilizer throughout the summer.

Prune

I’m not going to prune. Just like feeding, pruning tells the plants that it’s time to put out new growth. The summer is not the time to expose new areas to sunlight and push out a lot of new growth. Just like frost damage, sun-damaged parts of the plant protect the interior of that plant from additional damage. Leave it alone. Don’t cut it off until temperatures cool back down in the fall. Light harvesting of herbs like rosemary and sage is fine, but wait until temperatures cool off to do heavy pruning on anything. I’m not going to expect everything to look its best during the hottest months of the year. If they get overrun with pests or diseases, pull them out so they don’t infect other parts of your garden.

Learn All You Can and Hold on Tight

And finally, even after all we do to prepare, summer is a hot, stressful time and some plants will struggle. Learn all you can and hold on tight. The last couple of summers have been record-breaking and not in a good way. Who knows what this year will bring?

Conclusion

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear more about what your struggles are and anything you’ve learned along the way. If you would like to learn more, consider joining, Growing in the Yard of paradise. 

If you found this article helpful, please give it a review and share it with your friends. Stay in touch with us for more fantastic gardening tips and outdoor inspiration. Your questions and thoughts are always welcome, so feel free to leave a comment below.

Good luck and keep growing.

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