How to Save Plants from Heat Stress

Tips on keeping crops cool during hot weather. Late summer also is the time to plant your fall-producing crops, such as spinach, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, beets and radishes.

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by Adobestock/Susan Vineyard

The hot summer sun can be tough on garden plants and roots; learn how to save plants from heat stress by watering and mulching to continue producing. Consider controlled shading plants and roots to keep plants cool.

How to Save Plants from Heat Stress

If you want to keep your garden productive well into fall, then late summer is a busy  season that must be embraced. Hot temperatures are as rough on plants as on the gardeners who grow them, but here’s a roundup of techniques you can use to help you and your crops cope. And the sweat you invest when you seed beets or transplant broccoli will be richly rewarded in a few short weeks. The late summer planting list is a long one with plenty of choices — chard, spinach, lettuce, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, carrots, beets, radishes and turnips. Now is the time to give cool-season vegetables a second run in your garden.

Keeping Crops Cool During Hot Weather

At this point you may be thinking it’s all you can do to nurse tomatoes and other pet crops through a mean summer. We know your pain! But 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 set fruit in extreme heat. Temperatures in the 90s cause many beans to hold back flowers, and tomatoes, peppers and eggplants start having trouble completing the pollination process when temperatures rise above only 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

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