I admit for the past few gardening seasons, I’ve sometimes felt more like a fireman with a fire hose than a gardener with a garden hose.
Those large-leafed crops like winter squash can look so droopy at the end of a 95-degree day. But the fact is, I’m still eating frozen beans from last year, and I intend to do all right this year, too – even if we get still another dry and hot season.
My tool kit for finessing bone-dry weather includes mulch, shade cloth, a hedge for wind protection, heat-hardy varieties and a streak of stubbornness. But the best tool of all for vegetables and small fruits is rich soil, chock-full of nutrients and invisible living things.
Soil should hold water but also drain well, like a kitchen sponge that stays damp but doesn’t drip when you squeeze it. To build that kind of soil in my garden, I deliver wheelbarrows full of compost, leaves and manure to my steadily improving soil, like an attentive waiter hoping for a good tip.
I also enrich the soil with cover crops like winter rye and vetch in the offseason, and buckwheat and clover during the warm months. There’s far more to rye than meets the eye. The root systems go 4 or 5 feet deep to break up the soil and create good drainage.
When you turn these green manure crops under, you make both microbes and crops extremely happy. Many of our edible crops originally came from places with rich, “chocolate cake” soil, and their roots are grateful to be back in familiar surroundings. In fact, the roots and residues of all our vegetable crops are good for building soil. In the high and arid West, organic residues and compost are a vegetable grower’s best allies.
Even in drought conditions, overwatering is often a fatal mistake. The point of no return is when you’ve accidentally watered so much that your favorite tomato plants are wilting from the abundance. Their rotting roots can’t take up water, but you would swear they’re still thirsty.
Long before that point, I scrape my finger deep into the soil like a dipstick, to see if it’s wet or dry. I try to read the foliage like a vitality gauge: Dark green, turgid foliage generally means, “all systems go,” but on the other hand, overly lush foliage without flowers also can indicate the soil has been overfertilized.
I water deeply, but not every day, so roots go deep rather than staying near the surface where they’ll bake.
To maintain cool temperatures above and below ground, put a 3-inch layer of mulch around your plants, about half a foot wide on either side. Materials that work well are dried grass clippings, hay that’s free of weed seeds, compost, leaves and pine needles.
Or, lay down strips of clean, dye-free cardboard, then cover with one of these mulches. Make sure to poke holes in the cardboard after wetting it down, to allow water to soak in. Materials like sawdust and bark work well too, but make sure to add compost or organic fertilizer (like blood meal or alfalfa pellets), because when these carbon-rich mulches decompose, they use the nitrogen your crops need.
I keep crops like broccoli, lettuce, and carrots a few degrees cooler by providing a canopy of shade on brutally hot days. I use shade cloth with a 30 percent shade coefficient, stretching it over nails pounded into wooden stakes. This approach lets me feel less helpless as temperatures climb, and also whenever hail threatens.
I use a similar shading strategy when transplanting heat-sensitive seedlings like lettuce, covering each seedling with an upside-down, 1-gallon pot (6 inches across) pushed into the soil at an angle that faces away from south and west exposure. A few days of afternoon shade enables the roots to get established, making each plant a better producer.
Protection from winds that strip moisture from the soil is a big help too. Try planting a mini-hedge of dwarf lilacs (Miss Kim variety) on the leeward side of your garden to retain soil moisture and also provide fragrant blossoms for your gardening pleasure.
Planting sun-sensitive crops in the partial shade of a tree is a great idea too; Colorado sun is so radiant that five or six hours is sufficient for most crops except sun-lovers like corn, beans and tomatoes.
Don’t forget to plant yourself in the shade occasionally during long hours in the vegetable garden. Then, after your iced-tea break – if the rain gods have been kind and the pests have migrated to the neighbor’s garden – you can harvest fresh, juicy vegetables for dinner.
David Wann gardens in Golden, in soil enriched by dinosaur manure. He’s author of “The Zen of Gardening in the High and Arid West,” and teaches gardening courses at the Denver Botanic Gardens.
Sun-tested
Seven heat-hardy champions for your vegetable garden.
Large Leaf Basil: Grow your own pesto with up to three cuttings a summer from pest-free plants spaced 4 inches apart.
Chinese Red Radishes: These have probably been grown for a thousand years. As long as Daikon icicle radishes (5-6 inches), they are red-skinned with a mild favor and an ability to take the heat.
Yukon Gold Potatoes: For an early maturing, sweet-tasting, reliably large potato, it’s hard to beat Yukon Gold. I grow Yukons in a 50-50 blend of rich soil and acidic leaves like maple and oak, scavenged the previous fall.
Bloomsdale Long-Standing spinach: This variety is a workhorse, thriving in both cold and hot conditions. In addition to spring plantings, I transplant Bloomsdale seedlings into the garden in early September, and watch them persist through the winter without any cover.
Detroit Red Beets: You may not think you like beets until you’ve tasted some of these super-sweet globes, either boiled or roasted. They germinate reliably and provide vitamin-packed greens for salads.
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes: As sweet as berries, these bright orange tomatoes will add zest and brightness to any salad.
Hardneck, Red-skinned garlic: A spicy, long-storing variety of garlic that originated in places like Siberia and Poland. Fall-planted cloves wait until the soil warms up enough to germinate, then make quick progress toward a late June harvest.
– David Wann
