How To Keep The Garden Cool In Summer

Looking to find vegetable seeds to plant in summer for a fall harvest? Learn how to keep the garden cool in summer and how to keep the heat off cool-weather plants.

Reader Contribution by Ira Wallace
Updated on August 13, 2023
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Adobe Stock/alexkich
Man farmer watering a vegetable garden in the evening at sunset
Looking to find vegetable seeds to plant in summer for a fall harvest? Learn how to keep the garden cool in summer and how to keep the heat off cool-weather plants.

It seems like we just got started with our summer succession plantings, laid out the drip irrigation, and finished mulching everything in sight, but it’s already time to start planting our Fall and Winter garden — despite temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit! We’re sowing broccoli, cabbage, kale and other brassicas that will mature in the cool fall weather.

If we want to have a glorious “second spring” in September that carries us through the holidays, into winter and beyond, then we need to start planting now in our Zone 7 garden. For help timing your fall garden, I recommend you contact your local Master Gardener group or county extension office.

Keep Soil Cool for Planting

As insurance against fickle weather, I usually make at least two plantings of broccoli and cabbage seedlings for my fall garden. Frankly, vegetable plants don’t care what season it is, as long as their basic growing conditions are met. When it is 100 degrees for days in a row, you have to make it cooler.

The soil temperature should be 85 degrees or lower to get normal seedlings. If you have space to start seedlings inside in flats, that might be sufficient, as long as they are kept moist and get enough light once the seedlings emerge.

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