It’s the middle of July and it’s the time of year when heat stress in plants can be a significant challenge for gardeners. If you’re gardening in the peak of summer or in a region with consistently high temperatures, heat stress can lead to wilting, reduced yields, poor fruit quality, and even cause plants to just up and die. But, we can do something about it. Lots of things, actually.
Today on Just Grow Something we’re talking effective management of heat stress in our plants, including preventive measures and actions to take after our plants are affected. We will talk all the strategies we can take to help maintain a healthy garden despite the heat. Let’s dig in!
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It's the middle of July and it's the time of year when heat
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stress in plants can be a significant challenge for
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gardeners. If you're gardening in the peak
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of the summer or just in a region with consistently high
00:00:12
temperatures, heat stress can lead to wilting, reduced yields,
00:00:16
poor fruit quality and even 'cause our plants to just up and
00:00:20
die. But we can do something about
00:00:23
it. Lots of things actually.
00:00:25
Today on Just Grow Something, we're talking effective
00:00:27
management of heat stress in our plants, including preventative
00:00:30
measures and actions to take after our plants are possibly
00:00:34
affected. We'll talk all the strategies
00:00:36
that we can take to help maintain a healthy garden
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despite the heat. Let's dig in.
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Hey, I'm Karen, I started gardening in a small corner of
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my suburban backyard and now 18 years later, I've got a degree
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in horticulture and operate a 40 acre market farm.
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I believe there is power in food and that everyone should know
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how to grow at least a little bit of their own.
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On this podcast, I share evidence based techniques to
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help you plant, grow, harvest and store all your family's
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favorites. Consider me your friend in the
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garden. So grab your garden journal and
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a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.
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So it is the middle of July and honestly, it hasn't been nearly
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as bad here as it usually is. By now.
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Mother Nature has generally turned the faucet off like weeks
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ago and the temperatures would have normally soared into the
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upper 90s or low one hundreds Fahrenheit.
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But we've had much more rain this year and the temperatures
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have only eked into the low 90s a couple of times time so far.
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But I know it's coming, so it's time to prepare the garden to be
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resilient. Heat stress in our plants
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happens when the temperatures basically exceed what the plants
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optimal range is, and so this causes a bunch of different
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physiological disruptions. It means the plant can't
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function the way it normally would.
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For most of our summer vegetables, the optimal growth
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occurs when they the temperatures are between 70 and
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85 Fahrenheit, or 21 to 29 Celsius.
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Anytime the temperatures start to go above that range, we're
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going to start to see some signs of heat stress in our plants.
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The 1st and most obvious one is wilting and this is generally
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due to excessive water loss. Now this is not the same as the
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plants sort of wilting over in the hottest part of the day to
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reduce their leaf surface exposure because they're doing
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that at that point to just prevent further transpiration
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from happening. You don't want to have the water
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evaporating from the leaf surface, so they will wilt over,
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but generally speaking, once the temperatures start to cool off
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in the evening and into the overnight, they will bounce
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right back up again. Wilting due to excessive water
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loss is not going to recover very quickly, so you're not
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going to see those plants back out.
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They're going to stay wilted at that point.
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Another symptom is leaf scorch. This is the Browning or burning
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of the leaf edges. You might see them getting even
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crispy blossom drop. So this is when the flowers fall
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off of the plant without setting any fruit.
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They just fall off for seemingly no reason.
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This is due to the heat and then fruit disorders like blossom and
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rot in our tomatoes and our eggplant and you know, even our
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Peppers and our zucchinis and stuff.
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This is not generally going to be due to a lack of calcium in
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the soil. We talk about blossom and rot
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being a lack of calcium, but it's technically a lack of
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calcium in the plant and in the extreme heat.
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This is often as a result of heat stress or inconsistent
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water just causing a lack of calcium movement.
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So it can't get into the plant or it can't move within the
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plant into the fruit where it is needed.
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So you may not necessarily have a lack of calcium.
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It very well may be due to the heat or a lack of water.
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And then you also may see some very obvious stunted growth in
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your plants. They either will slow to a crawl
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or completely stop development altogether and just sort of seem
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like they're in this sort of, I don't know, stasis.
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So what do we do to prevent heat stress from getting to our
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plants at all? Really what we want to do is
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sort of create an environment in the garden that minimizes
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extreme temperature swings and that sort of supports the plants
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being resilient on their own. And the first thing to do is to
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look for varieties that are bred for heat tolerance that can
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significantly reduce the risk of heat stress.
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There are a lot of varieties out there that have been bred to be
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able to withstand a lot of high heat.
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So look for varieties that are labeled as heat tolerant or heat
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resistant. There are tomatoes and Peppers
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and eggplant, even lettuces that have been bred to withstand
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higher temperatures. Even though that's not something
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that we would typically grow here in the middle of the the
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summer unless they are very, very tiny and they are
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underneath some shade. But in areas where they the heat
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doesn't get quite as extreme, you actually can grow some of
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those varieties of lettuce throughout the the summer time.
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You can also look for local seed companies that are offering bio
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regionally adapted seed and plant varieties.
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This means that those cultivars have been grown in your area for
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multiple seasons, standing up against the weather and the
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pests and the diseases that are unique to your region and they
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have thrived to be able to reproduce.
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You know, when we're saving seeds, we want to save the best
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of the best. And so when you do that, those
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plants are going to be better adapted for growing in your
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unique summer heat situation than ones that are maybe grown
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elsewhere. So if you're in the Kansas or
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Missouri region, I highly recommend the Buffalo Seed
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Company. I have had stellar results with
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their seeds and they are bio regionally adapted for this
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area. So you can find them at the
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Buffalo seedcompany.com. The second thing that we can do
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to help prevent the heat stress from even setting in is to apply
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mulch. I constantly preach mulch.
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This is one of the reasons why applying mulch around your
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plants can help conserve the soil moisture #1 but it also is
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going to help regulate that soil temperature.
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So it's reducing the impact of these extreme heat events.
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I recommend organic mulches that are light in color, so straw or
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light colored wood chips are particularly effective.
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They're going to reflect the heat back off while keeping that
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soil cool. You can use compost.
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Compost tends to be a little bit darker, so it may not be quite
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as effective, but it's still going to help more than not
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having anything at all. You wanna make sure that the
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mulch is applied about two to four inches deep around the base
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of your plants. Just make sure that you're not
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putting them in direct contact with the stems because we don't
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want them to rot. Now is a good time to be double
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checking. Even if you did apply mulch
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early in the spring or the beginning of your gardening
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season, now is a good time to check and make sure that you
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still have as thick of a layer as you think you do because
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again, these are organic mulches, so they're going to
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start to break down over time and you may not have as much
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right now as you think. I don't recommend in areas with
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extreme heat like this that you use black plastic mulch or black
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landscape fabric. We have used it in the past and
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generally speaking, the plants that do the best for us with
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those types of mulches are the ones that are grown in the very
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early spring. So our lettuces, for example,
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head lettuces have done very, very well.
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But when we have used them for things like tomatoes, it tends
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to, at least out in the field and the wide open, it tends to
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make those root zones very, very hot.
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And our plants are just as affected by the soil
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temperatures as they are the air temperature.
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So we have actually gotten away from using too many of those
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types of mulches unless we are also putting some sort of
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organic mulch over the top. So we'll use it as a weed
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barrier, but then we'll use an actual organic mulch to kind of
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reflect that heat off. And the next thing to think
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about is watering practices. I say it, you know, all the
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time. It supplies for all the plants
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in your garden. You want less frequent but more
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thorough waterings. This is even more important when
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we're talking about heat stress. You want to water deeply to
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encourage that deep root growth. So you want to saturate the soil
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down to the four to six inch layer.
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This is gonna help the plants access moisture from deeper soil
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layers during heat waves. And you want it to be deep
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because the closer that water is to the surface, the faster it's
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going to evaporate. And then the plants aren't even
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actually going to get to take advantage of that.
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This is also one of the reasons why we want to water earlier in
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the day. So if we can water early in the
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morning, it's going to reduce that evaporation and it's going
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to help the plants get really hydrated before they have to
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face that heat of the day. And then if you can use either a
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drip irrigation system or soaker hoses or low to the ground types
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of sprinklers, that will put moisture sort of right at the
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root zone and allow it to soak in better.
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This is also going to minimize that water loss.
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It's also going to reduce the risk of foliar diseases because
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you're not splashing the water up onto those leaves.
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And if you live in a very humid climate, you know, those leaves
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are already getting that sort of moisture from the air, and that
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is just a breeding ground for foliar diseases.
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So we don't want to add anything on top of that.
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So irrigating or watering at the soil line is going to be the
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best idea. Now you can provide also some
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shade solutions to help protect your plants from excessive heat
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and like really intense sunlight.
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Shade cloth is a good option. You can, you know, have this
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erected earlier in the in the the season to help to reduce the
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temperature. It's also gonna help reduce the
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light intensity. These clothes come in a wide
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variety of shading levels. So they'll either say it shades
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at a certain thing or it allows a certain level of light.
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So if it's, you know, it says 50%, then obviously it's gonna
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let in about 50% of the light. Some of the times it will say
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it's a 70%, which means it's letting in 70% of the light.
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You know, you can go as, as as high as 90%.
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So you generally speaking, you know, I mean, depending on the,
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the time of the year, but 70% of the light coming through is
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going to be good. 50% is, is good too.
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It's going to help to, to shade those and cool them quite a bit.
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You just don't want it to be so dark or so thick that it's not
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letting any of the light through and it's just sort of trying to
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grow in the shade at that point. You can use row covers for this.
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Also the the lightweight row covers that we use for frost
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cloth in the winter time can also provide shade.
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You just want to make sure that it's elevated up enough above
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the plants that you get the air flow.
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Because those things, if you put them like down like a, a tunnel
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over top of those plants, it's actually just gonna trap the
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heat in and that's gonna make it even worse.
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So they need to be open and they need to be up high enough to
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where you're gonna get that air flow under there.
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And then, you know, think about interplanting.
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We talk about growing taller crops with lower growing ones,
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and you can do this in a manner that it's strategic so that the
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taller ones will provide natural shade for the shorter, maybe
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more heat sensitive plants. This does require some
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forethought. So these are things that you
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need to think about when you're in your initial planning stages
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of your garden in the winter or in the early spring, keeping in
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mind what those summer conditions are going to be like.
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Now, what happens? What should we do when we see
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our plants undergoing some heat stress?
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You know, despite our best efforts, it's very likely going
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to happen no matter what. So if your plants are wilting or
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they are showing signs of heat stress, check the soil moisture
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first before you immediately decide to water them again.
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We have to learn to determine the difference between when they
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are wilting over to reduce the surface area just to protect
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itself from, you know, further water evaporation versus them
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wilting due to heat stress or not having enough water.
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So check the soil moisture first and if you do see that that soil
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is dry below the three inch mark, then go ahead and water.
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Water them immediately. Make sure that the water reaches
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that root zone and not just the surface where it's going to
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evaporate. You want it down at that four to
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six inch level. So you may have to run that
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water for a while and in very severe cases, you might actually
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have to water twice a day until those stress symptoms start to
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subside. It may not be an immediate
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uptake of water. It all depends on how stressed
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they have gotten. The second thing you can do is
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throw up some temporary shading. So, you know, it doesn't have to
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be a fancy shade cloth. It could be old bed sheets or
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you know, burlap or you know, if you have shade cloth, great.
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If you have row cover, great. Just support whatever you're
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using as a shading material up with stakes or some other type
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of a structure because you don't want them to be in direct
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contact with the plants. That can cause some physical
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damage. We also don't want them that
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close to the plants because that's going to impede the air
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flow and maybe trap more of the heat.
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We want the air to flow, but we want to block some of that that
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sun. Something else that you can do
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is to spray them very lightly with water.
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OK, A light mist of water on the foliage can actually help cool
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plants through evaporation. And you want to do this kind of
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earlier in the day. You don't want to do it like
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right at the hottest part of the day 'cause you might actually
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damage the plants at this point. But just think about how good it
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feels for you to stand out in the sun and maybe just have a
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misting of water on your face. Now translate that into what
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it's going to feel like on those leaf surfaces so early in the
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morning or late in the afternoon, just to kind of give
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them a little bit of a break. And that will actually help to
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cool those plants a little bit and alleviate some of that
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stress. You can also alleviate some of
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the stress by doing some pruning and some thinning.
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Now obviously we want to do this in the early morning when the
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plants aren't already, you know warm from the heat of the day
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and they're not already stressed.
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But if you can remove some of the foliage, you're going to
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actually reduce the plants water needs at that point.
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And it's also going to help improve the air flow around that
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plant, which is going to help to cool the plant down.
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You can also take a look at the way that you're plants are
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growing and if they seem like there may be a little
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overcrowded for the current conditions, then thinning them
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out is also going to reduce that competition for water and
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nutrients. And it's also going to provide a
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little bit more air flow. So this is all going to help
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with, you know, any kind of recovery from heat stress that
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they're already facing. It also will help to prevent any
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further stress from occurring. You also need to try to see how
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well you can manage your soil. So, you know, adding organic
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matter to the soil is going to improve its water holding
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capacity. And of course, it also adds
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nutrients at the same time. But that water holding capacity
00:16:06
is important during times when, you know, it's extreme heat
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events. So if we can add organic matter
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at the beginning of the season or in the offseason to help
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improve the soil, that is gonna help in the overall.
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If you're doing a raised planter or raised garden bed and it
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seems like you need to somehow improve that soil structure and
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you need to do it fairly quickly, you can actually
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incorporate vermiculite or perlite into those beds.
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You can do this in the in the garden beds too.
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It's not going to cause any harm.
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We've talked about what perlite and and vermiculite are.
00:16:41
They are natural substances. They actually help to retain
00:16:45
moisture and they also help to improve the soil structure.
00:16:48
So if the compost isn't doing it or you don't have access to a
00:16:52
ton of compost, you can actually get large bags of vermiculite or
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perlite and you can work that into your soil.
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And then also consider growing cover crops during the
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offseason. That's going to help improve the
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soil structure too. And it's also going to help with
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the moisture retention. Now, some of this takes, you
00:17:08
know, some effort, it takes some forethought, and then some of
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this, you know, takes effort in the garden to manage this stuff.
00:17:15
And I know the last thing that we may want to be doing is
00:17:17
spending energy in the hot afternoon.
00:17:20
So doing these things in the early morning or in the evening
00:17:23
is your best bet. So be prepared to get out there
00:17:27
when the conditions are more forgiving.
00:17:29
Know what you need to do and time it to where it's going to
00:17:33
be more forgiving for you. If you're finding you're having
00:17:36
some energy issues in the late afternoon, I will tell you that
00:17:40
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00:17:45
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00:17:49
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00:17:53
not just the energy it gave me, but also the calm focus that I
00:17:57
had toward my work in the afternoons, whether that was on
00:18:00
the computer or out in the gardens.
00:18:02
Magic Mind reached out to me recently because they wanted me
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OK, well let's talk long term strategies for managing heat
00:20:11
stress, right? If if you garden in an area that
00:20:14
frequently has high temperatures or you know that your summertime
00:20:19
gets excruciatingly hot before it starts to cool off, then
00:20:23
there are some long term strategies that you can use to
00:20:27
sort of mitigate those circumstances.
00:20:30
You can actually create your own kind of microclimate in your
00:20:35
garden, and this is going to give you a localized environment
00:20:40
that helps protect your plants from extreme heat.
00:20:43
One of those things that you can do is actually plant hedges or
00:20:47
install fences or trellises where plants can be grown that
00:20:52
will shade your garden beds at an appropriate time of day
00:20:56
during the summer. Now, this does take some
00:20:59
planning and it actually takes some observation on your part
00:21:05
during this summer and looking at where the sun is hitting,
00:21:11
taking notes about when the temperatures get to be the most
00:21:15
extreme and all of these things in your garden journals that you
00:21:19
can go back. And this includes drawing these
00:21:22
things out. If you can give yourself a
00:21:23
little drawing of your garden and duplicate it so you have
00:21:28
sort of three different versions of it and you can monitor where
00:21:32
the sun is hitting and what's growing and how those plants are
00:21:37
reacting to the sun. You know, at the beginning part
00:21:39
of the season and then smack dab in the middle and then again at
00:21:42
the end. Or if it's really just the
00:21:43
summer that you're worried about, the beginning part of the
00:21:46
summer and then the middle and then the end.
00:21:49
That is going to give you an idea of where you could put
00:21:51
these sort of wind breaks or I guess sun breaks, for lack of a
00:21:55
better term. These hedges or fences or
00:21:57
trellises that you can use to grow things on that are going to
00:22:02
help protect some of those other plants.
00:22:04
The other thing to think about is living ground covers.
00:22:06
So growing perennial plants in the garden that act as a living
00:22:12
mulch that you can plant into that is going to protect that
00:22:16
soil. It's going to protect the soil
00:22:18
without you having to constantly replenish mulch.
00:22:22
You just have to make sure it's something that's not going to
00:22:24
compete with the other things that you actually are growing in
00:22:27
those beds. Believe it or not, I am working
00:22:29
on this with perennial mints in many of my raised planters and I
00:22:34
know that like sends alarm bells off to most people because we're
00:22:38
always told don't put mint anywhere that you don't want it
00:22:41
to live forever. I'm using them in my raised
00:22:45
planter box, direct planters. And because they're not going to
00:22:49
escape that cultivation if they do, they're just going down in
00:22:51
the grass. And I don't care if it's going
00:22:53
in the grass, that's fine. But the plants that I typically
00:22:56
put into some of those planters are taller growing plants that
00:22:59
are not going to be competing with the mint.
00:23:02
The mint will stay low growing and then I do much taller like
00:23:05
zucchinis or I put tomatoes in there or Peppers or whatever.
00:23:09
I probably would not use mint in a bed that I was going to grow
00:23:14
nothing but leafy greens or you know, lettuces or you know, low
00:23:20
growing greens like arugula. That would definitely be
00:23:22
competition. So you have to think about how
00:23:24
you're going to use those beds. Clover is good for this too.
00:23:28
You can also plant annuals if you don't want to put a
00:23:30
perennial in there. You can plant annuals that do
00:23:32
the same thing. They just don't stay in place
00:23:34
permanently. Anything that you can do to help
00:23:36
protect that soil, you know, if if the mulch isn't really doing
00:23:41
as good of a job as you might hope.
00:23:43
And the other option is reflective mulches.
00:23:46
We talked about the organic mulches being a light color and
00:23:50
that helping to reflect some of that heat.
00:23:53
But there are mulches that use reflective materials like white
00:23:58
plastic mulch, so white instead of black that can help keep the
00:24:01
soil temperatures lower. There are also light colored
00:24:05
paper mulches that can also be used.
00:24:07
We have used those before in our onions.
00:24:09
If the organic mulch that you've got access to just isn't very
00:24:14
effective for you, you have other options.
00:24:17
Another thing that we can look at in the long term is some sort
00:24:21
of soil moisture monitoring. If if you are finding that you
00:24:26
are constantly battling keeping your garden watered and you, you
00:24:30
really feel like you're having a hard time sort of tracking those
00:24:34
moisture levels and you know, going out and sticking your
00:24:36
finger in the dirt just isn't working and you feel like you're
00:24:39
always watering. There are soil moisture sensors
00:24:42
that can help you track these things.
00:24:44
Some of them are very, very simple and it's just sort of an
00:24:47
analogue reading and you go down and you check it.
00:24:49
Some of them are like really fancy schmancy and like you can
00:24:54
hook it into your irrigation and it will automatically turn
00:24:58
things on. And then there's everything in
00:24:59
between. So different technologies, wide
00:25:04
gambit of of options for them. But it can prevent you from
00:25:08
under watering and having to go out and do those sort of
00:25:11
emergency waterings if you're just struggling with your plants
00:25:16
constantly, you know, suddenly wilting over because something
00:25:18
happened and they didn't get enough water.
00:25:20
So you can consider using some sort of a soil moisture monitor.
00:25:25
And then one thing that we we may not think about when it
00:25:28
comes to heat stress is making sure that we have an integrated
00:25:32
pest management strategy, right? So our plants, if they are
00:25:38
healthier, are going to be more resilient to heat stress.
00:25:43
So if we don't have a bunch of insects that are predating on
00:25:47
them breaking down their defenses, then they can focus
00:25:51
their energies on being resilient to that heat stress.
00:25:53
So we're reducing the pest pressure, which you know, is is
00:25:57
going to eliminate some of that that extra stress.
00:26:00
So crop rotation, making sure that we're disrupting those pest
00:26:03
life cycles using biological controls like the, you know,
00:26:07
beneficial insects that we can bring in, whether you're
00:26:09
bringing them in or you're planting things to kind of
00:26:12
attract them to the garden. And then of course, inter
00:26:15
planting or companion planting and making sure that you are
00:26:17
growing plants together that are mutually beneficial to each
00:26:20
other in terms of pest control and growth.
00:26:23
Those are all things that you can do to help manage the pest
00:26:25
pressure, which will, you know, sort of leave the energy of your
00:26:30
plant available to be able to combat the heat.
00:26:34
And then I, I really do want to talk about that sort of genetic
00:26:39
resiliency component. Again, if you can grow plants
00:26:43
that are closer to being native in your area, you will have a
00:26:48
better you'll have better luck getting them to survive extreme
00:26:52
heat. So this goes along with what we
00:26:54
said about bio regionally adapted seeds and plants.
00:26:57
If a plant is a cultivated variety of something that grew
00:27:01
wild natively in your area, it is much, much more likely to do
00:27:07
well in your area than something that originated in a completely
00:27:11
different climate from yours. So consider that when you're
00:27:15
planning your garden. I know we all have our
00:27:17
favourites, right? If you are a tomato lover, you
00:27:20
want to grow tomatoes. Well, it's very likely that
00:27:23
there are tomatoes that have been adapted to grow much better
00:27:27
in your area than some of the other varieties.
00:27:31
So once again, if you can find a company that is local to you
00:27:35
that is growing those seeds, or if you can figure out what the
00:27:41
sort of area of origin is for the plants that you want to grow
00:27:45
and find some that were originating in climates that
00:27:50
were very similar to yours, it's going to help you have those
00:27:55
plants be more resilient and more resistant against that heat
00:27:58
stress. So if your plants got heat
00:28:03
stress and then you employed all the measures you possibly could
00:28:06
to get them to bounce back, you're going to know if they
00:28:09
have recovered because you're going to see a few signs.
00:28:11
They're going to regain their firmness.
00:28:13
They're no longer going to appear wilted at all times.
00:28:16
They should have bounced back. You will start to see healthy
00:28:20
new leaves and shoots appearing and you should see the
00:28:23
resumption of normal flowering and fruiting patterns.
00:28:28
Even if your plants don't go through actual heat stress and
00:28:33
look like they're being damaged, they still may have some of
00:28:37
these symptoms that cause them to, you know, stop growing and
00:28:41
and stop flowering and that sort of thing.
00:28:42
As the weather starts to cool off a little bit, you should
00:28:46
also see the resumption of a lot of these activities.
00:28:50
It's not necessarily a death sentence to those plants if they
00:28:53
just kind of sit in a holding pattern for a little bit trying
00:28:57
to get themselves through the worst of the heat.
00:29:01
So we just want to kind of help them in that situation.
00:29:05
So, you know, constantly monitoring the weather forecast
00:29:10
and checking our soil moisture levels, making sure that we're
00:29:12
sort of anticipating when that next round of heat is going to
00:29:16
hit will give us the ability to be able to give our plants a
00:29:19
little bit of attention. And that way we can maintain a
00:29:22
productive garden even through the hottest summer conditions.
00:29:27
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
00:29:29
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
00:29:32
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Just Grow
00:29:35
Something podcast. For more information about
00:29:37
today's topic and to find all the ways you can get in touch
00:29:39
with me or support the show, go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com.
00:29:44
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep learning and keep
00:29:47
growing.