Preparing for Hot Climate Gardening: 10 Points to Remember

Preparing for Hot Climate Gardening – If you live in a hot-summer area, the notion of the oncoming summer may make you anxious, despite the beauty of the season. Hot temperatures are on their way, and it’s critical to get your garden ready for the scorching summer months ahead.

What you do before the summer heat arrives will have an impact on how well your veggies, herbs, and flowers will do throughout the oncoming summer heat. Here are some tips for preparing your summer garden in a hot area.

10 Hot Climate Gardening Tips

1. Remove all the little containers from the garden.

Vegetable, herb, and flower cultivation may be accomplished effectively in containers of any size throughout the colder months of the year. The problem is that little containers heat up and dry up really rapidly when the weather turns hot. Furthermore, because of their tiny size, it is impossible to grow anything in them.

As a result, as the temperatures begin to rise, it is time to store the little containers until the weather begins to calm down in the autumn. Remove the dirt from the pots and use it as mulch, or compost it with the rest of your yard waste. If needed, big containers that hold at least 10 gallons of soil may be used to store the soil.

2. If you live in a hot region, plant ollas (oyas) in pots in your summer garden.

When utilizing big or extra-large containers during the summer, consider including ollas in the containers if at all feasible. In the warmer summer months, storing ollas in containers helps to protect them from drying out as quickly.

Ollas are a kind of plant irrigation that gently delivers water to the roots of plants as the water seeps out of the pot of terracotta that is buried under the soil. As the olla empties, you replenish it with fresh water. Growoya ollas are what I utilize. You may get a modest discount by using the code GROWING.

3. Examine the irrigation system and watering system.

The high heat of hot-summer climes means that plants may perish before you notice that they need watering. While a broken emitter may not be a major concern during the colder months, it may be a significant deal during the summer. So be sure to check all of the components of your irrigation and watering system BEFORE the weather turns hot.

• Take a look at the emitters on your landscaping plants to make sure they are all working.
• To make sure each bed has enough water pressure and coverage, look at each bed’s watering system to see if there is enough water in each.
• As required, add more emitters to the system.
• Examine the timings.
• Timer batteries should be checked and replaced as needed.
• Inspect hose fittings for leaks and replace o-rings as necessary to stop the leaks.

4. Add more mulch to prepare your hot climate gardening.

Mulch is a gardener’s greatest buddy in the summer heat. The sun is particularly damaging to plants and soil in hot summer climes. The addition of mulch, on the other hand, has several advantages:

Mulch protects the soil from the sun’s direct rays, which causes only small temperature changes in the area around it.

A thick covering of mulch implies that less moisture will be lost to evaporation as a result of the heat. After that, you may water less regularly, which conserves water, money, and time!

5. Examine the use of cool-season plants in your summer garden in a hot region.

If you reside in a hot summer environment, cool-season crops will not be able to thrive as the summer months approach. Consequently, when I see a crop isn’t going to yield before the weather becomes hot, I remove the plant to avoid it being agitated and attracting insects.

The use of cool-season herbs (cilantro, dill, parsley) to attract beneficial insects and pollinators is recommended but not required.

6. Prepare for the following season by planting and making arrangements for hot climate gardening.

Plant warm-season crops in the vacant spaces in your garden to make the most of your space. After that, after current crops such as potatoes, garlic, and onions have been harvested, you may pick what to plant next. Planting suggestions may be found in the planting guidelines for the months of May, June, July, and August.

7. Plant cover crops in the beds that have been left vacant.

It is recommended to plant a cover crop in garden beds if they will not be utilized for more than six weeks at a time. Cover crops are a sort of live mulch that aids in the improvement of the soil’s fertility.

Soybeans, cowpeas, sorghum, and tithonia are examples of summer garden cover crops that thrive in hot climates.

8. Examine your yard to see if it requires additional shade.

Once you’ve decided what you’re going to plant in your garden, you’ll need to consider how much shade your garden will need. First, search for spots that get a lot of direct sunlight. Is it necessary to provide some shade?

Depending on the plant, some thrive in direct sunlight, but others do not. After that, consider where it would be beneficial to provide shade in your summer garden in a hot environment.

9. In a hot climate, provide as much shade as possible in your summer garden.

Shade keeps the direct light off of the vegetation, and the temperature in a shaded region may be around 10°F lower than in an unprotected location. Additionally, providing shade for plants may help to reduce the amount of moisture lost via transpiration, which is beneficial (evaporation of water from plant leaves).

It is possible to provide shade for your garden in a number of different ways. Sunflowers are a fantastic way to provide natural shade in areas that are in need of it.

Sunflowers should be planted outside of your raised beds so that they do not compete with the vegetables growing within the beds. Sunflowers should be planted on the west side of the garden to help offer shade in the afternoon.

Sunflowers with branching stems produce the longest-lasting blooms and provide the most shade. In the event that shade cloth is required, place it there. Shade fabric is available in a variety of thicknesses. During the summer, vegetables should be covered with 40 to 60% shade cloth in most cases.

10. Be prepared for, and learn from, difficulties in your summer garden in a hot environment.

The task of summer gardening in hot summer settings is not simple. Every summer brings with it a new set of problems.

Is there going to be monsoon winds, moisture, and rain in the forecast?

Do you think we’ll have record-breaking temperatures again this year?

Prepare for summer by anticipating that certain plants will not make it through the summer months. However, it is critical that we learn from our errors as well as from events that are beyond our control.