Beating Garden Fatigue

Q: When it’s super hot, can’t I cut back a little on my gardening?

What always ends up happening is it gets hot, people stop gardening and then they go back out when the temps cool in late August and everything is buried in weeds. Then they just give up. We’re not letting that happen this year.

There are ways to keep gardening without staying out in the heat for too long. First, I highly recommend getting a soaker hose and covering your soil with mulch. Then you can turn the hose on and literally set a timer and go back into the A/C while your garden is watered. Also, you can do your gardening at night, do an hour or so of weeding when it’s nice and cool.

Q: Why do I feel like my plants are barely growing anymore?

Those are probably plants that like cooler temperatures. When the temps rise, they still grow, but just a bit. As long as you can get them to germinate, and then make sure you water and fertilize them, they will grow, just slowly. As soon as the weather cools, you’ve got mature plants that are totally ready to grow, and they’ll just take off.

Q: Does that mean I shouldn’t plant anything new?

Not at all! Remember, we’re succession planting this year, so instead of planting every seed we got at the beginning of the season, we’ve been planting new seeds and seedlings every couple weeks so we have food through the whole season.

There are some things that won’t grow in the summer heat, like cauliflower and broccoli. You get two seasons: spring and fall. That’s it. But then there’s your heat lovers, like peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, they will all speed up.

At the end of this month, you’ll be starting your seeds for fall gardening. But instead of keeping them inside for the cold hours like we did for the spring season, you keep them inside for the hot hours. So you’ll put these seedlings outside in the late afternoon when temperatures get cooler, leave them overnight, then bring them back inside around 10 am the next day.

Q: So…about that blight?

Yes, disease in the garden is worse in the heat of the summer, because it’s very humid here. Think about how mold spreads. All of the fungal infections spread way more easily in the warm, damp air. You’ll see blight, probably powdery mildew on zucchini, squashes, watermelon. Aphids. Squash Vine Borer. Bacterial Wilt. You’ll want to keep an eye out for these diseases and stay on top of treating them, so they don’t spread through your garden.

Q: Is there something I’m forgetting?

Pay very close attention to rainfall this year, because we did not pay attention last year and we lost a lot of stuff. Remember to pull back your mulch and check the soil, especially if we’ve gone days without rainfall, to make sure it’s soaked and your plants are getting enough water. And if the soil isn’t wet enough, turn on that soaker hose and let it run. We have to keep track because your plants will not tell you until it’s too late.

When we get those heavy downpours, you need to do two things. Before the rain or when it just starts, run out to your garden and pick anything that could burst with too much water, like a tomato that even has a little bit of pink on it. Because if that tomato or say, your watermelon that’s pretty much ready to pick, hasn’t been getting much rain recently and then gets a downpour and fills up with water, it could split open.

The second thing you need to do is fertilize the day after that heavy rain, because it can wash out your fertilizer.

Q: Any tips for how to stay motivated through the heat?

I like to start thinking about what foods I’ll want to eat at Fall get-togethers. Focus on making sure you’re planting butternut squash now so you can make butternut squash soup then. And you’re replanting lettuce and greens, so there can be fresh salad at dinner.