The Best Ways to Keep Plants Alive During the Heat

When I left Arizona for the Pacific Northwest thirteen years ago, I assumed I would never need air conditioning again. Now I sit at the intersection of an air conditioner and two fans, and my garden has to put up with temperature spikes of over 100 degrees every summer. This has caused a sad but funny phenomenon throughout the city: people are building elaborate structures to protect their summer vegetables: umbrella sculptures and white sheets thrown all over the place. Irrigation philosophy is hotly debated in gardening groups.

But here are some expert tips to really follow to help your summer garden survive (and thrive) during the heat wave.

Use shadow cloth selectively and wisely

First, give up umbrellas. Global warming means that any kind of weather this summer is likely to repeat itself, so it’s time to build some infrastructure for that. Sheets help a little, but what you really need is some shade fabric . This black fabric should be erected like a sail over the most delicate corners of your garden. You can buy it in various blocking percentages. For example, 50% shading fabric blocks out 50% of UV rays and the sun, and your local garden center (or Amazon) sells it by the foot.

You don’t want it touching your plants or vegetables – you need to circulate air around them. Many shade fabrics have eyelets in the corners so they can be easily tied to trees or fences. If you don’t have enough, buy some simple green U-pillars from Home Depot and hammer them into place, or use PVC pipe and pipe straps to create a low tunnel that you can throw curtain fabric over.

Knowing what to protect and what to leave to chance is a clutch, and historically we focus on the wrong things. Most people rush to protect their nightshades like tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Although they can all get a little sunburn (it looks like sunburn), these plants do well in the sun and heat and you should only protect them when everything else is protected and you have some leftover tissue. They won’t pollinate in this weather and may drop their flowers in temperatures above 95F, but that’s not a problem at this time of year – it’s important to keep the fruit.

Peas are a crop with a very short season. By the time the heat dome hits, the season is almost over. And I wouldn’t cover annual flowers. Artichokes do not need protection, roses do not care, the grass will recover, lilacs, irises, peonies and tulips have long disappeared by this point in summer.

What to look for when protecting

I would start with your hydrangeas, which will literally roast under a hot dome. I would cover your berries, which are affected twice – the leaves are badly burned, and the berry crop will die due to heat burn. This is true for strawberries and blueberries, but especially for cane berries like raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries.

Lettuce and cabbage are especially susceptible, so the coating is ideal. Everything that is included in this delicate leaf annual group falls under this designation.

You might want to cover your cucumbers in weather like this, if only to keep them pollinating and hopefully take the bitterness out of them since, unlike other crops, they can still bear fruit.

Watering is hard

The old stereotype that watering at noon damages plants by burning them has been debunked, but there is no doubt that the roots are looking for water, and if you bring water to the surface on a hot day, the roots move closer to the surface where they are at risk. be burned. You need to water early in the morning and deep, at the level of the roots, and not overhead. If you water generously enough, you may not need to water every day. You want to test the soil by sticking your finger into it and seeing if it’s dry or wet a few inches below. This is your guide.

You can overfill the water and this is where you need to worry about things like cucumbers and tomatoes because even if you keep them thriving, they can taste terrible or develop flower rot due to the heat. The main thing is regular watering and top dressing. If you are feeding your plants (which should be done weekly), make sure you apply fertilizer early in the day and water. Avoid surface treatment during hot weather.

The more developed the plant, the more likely it is to survive.

Unfortunately, when we move on to autumn gardens, heatwaves set in, because the plants that were in the ground have developed a root system that provides them with stability. Tender seedlings do not have this and require more care. This could mean selective shading or hand watering to supplement what your dripper gives them.

Change your approach to gardening

If you are a gardener, you probably know what zone you are in, but you may not know that as a result of global warming, some places have changed the zone they are in. All this means that what is happening is not going anywhere. When you’re thinking about how to build your garden, you might want to make sure it has structures for shading and drip irrigation .

It is important to think about what and where you plant: choose plants that are heat and drought tolerant. Make sure you really pay attention to whether the plants want shade or sun and plant them properly.

Train your plants to use less water: By avoiding over-watering, we encourage plants to form strong root systems, and as a result they will need less water.

Mulch as hell

You really can’t overstate the importance of mulch in keeping plants hydrated and warm. A few inches of straw, wood chips, or any organic mulch in your garden beds will completely transform your plants. It keeps moisture in the ground. Make sure the mulch is away from the roots of plants and trees so it doesn’t spread disease, otherwise lay it down. Remember that you can get free wood chips anytime at Chip Drop locations.

Don’t leave the harvest on the vine

All edible items should be brought with you. Even a crop that you would normally let ripen until you are ready to do something with it, bring it in early. Otherwise, you invite them to cook on the vine. This includes tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, green beans, cucumbers and berries. Be sure to go outside to check the ripeness of the produce every evening or morning when it’s cool enough.