Keeping Up with your Garden
At this point during the summer, you may be thinking what else can I do to nurse my tomatoes and other crops through another horrific summer? I know your heartache and pain! Trust me, I hate the heat. You really can only take off so many clothes before getting a sunburn everywhere! This time of year is always hard to know how to help your garden or yard with the Summer heat. Heat can really be hard on plants if they aren’t getting all the necessary water, food or shade that is recommended for them and in turn can really stress or kill plants. If you want to keep your garden productive well into fall, then even the late summer is a busy season that must be embraced. Here are few techniques you can use to help you and your plants deal with it. The sweat you invest now, will only make it worth it when you harvest all your vegetables and fruits in the end.
Think about adding mulch to a garden bed or planter. Adding mulch can not only save on water, but it will help keep the soil cool for plants. Radiant heat from gravel or dirt can be quite a bit hotter than the ambient air around the plant and in turn can really hurt the plant. You can do this by adding a 1- to 3-inch layer of mulch around your plants, vegetable, fruits and flower gardens to slow water evaporation by as much as 70 percent. Less evaporation means less watering and it will help keep the soil cooler. Think of mulch as shade for your soil. Because of less exposure to sunlight, the soil stays cool, holds in moisture and keeps plant roots hydrated and moist longer.
Farmers often use sprinkling to cool plants down. So a late afternoon sprinkling may be an excellent idea, but strategically placed shading devices are often a better idea and can be more water efficient and much less time-consuming. One way to do this is to tie up shade cloth that you can get at your local nursery. This will help block sun during the hottest times of the day and allow the plants to survive the heat of the day. Keep in mind when doing this, they must be held several inches above the plants to keep them from retaining too much heat. Another way is when building your garden, consider installing wooden slats that will shade similar to an awning over a patio. This will help to shade during those hotter times of the day. Just make sure to check your community rules so you know what is allowed.
Unfortunately, even if you keep the soil evenly moist by using lots of soakers or drip irrigation hoses covered with a thick mulch, many vegetables will abort their blossoms rather than grow fruit or vegetables in extreme heat. Temperatures in the 90s cause many plants to hold back on flowering such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. These plants and others similar to them, start having trouble completing the pollination process when temperatures rise above only 86 degrees Fahrenheit. This is simply a way they conserve energy to survive during adverse climates and stress.
I know that caring for a garden and a yard can at times be very frustrating, but it can also be very rewarding. So anything that you can do to help make a bit of a difference for your plants throughout your garden or your yard will in the end help make all the difference.
