Join Us Sign In

Powered by California Local

Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

How to keep your garden cool during triple-digit heat

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAY 25, 2022

Red umbrella over plant

This umbrella is too beat-up to be useful in rain, but it makes excellent

impromptu shade for a plant that's not quite acclimated. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

Tips for helping plants cope on 100-degree days Are you wilting? How about your plants?

This week’s early blast of triple-digit heat is just a taste of what Sacramento-area gardeners can expect in the months ahead. Scorching summer temperatures likely will seem magnified by cutbacks in irrigation due to drought restrictions.

It’s time to beef up on ways to beat the heat – and save your landscape.

Yes, you can save water and help plants cope with weather extremes. Start with these basics:

* Stay hydrated! That applies to both you and your garden. Water early in the day – before 8 a.m. if possible – to cut down on evaporation.

* Cycle and soak. Water needs a chance to soak in, especially if you have clay soil. Otherwise, it will run off (and down the drain) instead of reaching roots. Run your irrigation for a short period. Wait an hour or two. Then, run your system again. The water from the second cycle will reach deeper than the first.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch! A 3-inch layer of straw, wood chips, dried leaves or other organic material will keep soil and roots cooler while conserving moisture.

* Shade sensitive plants and developing fruit on tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and squash. Your harvest can get sunburned. Protect from intense afternoon rays with temporary shade such as burlap draped over trellises.

* Wilting can be normal. Some big-leafed plants such as squash may seem to wilt every hot afternoon; that’s OK. They recover overnight. It’s when they’re still wilted in the morning that it’s a problem.

* Check the soil before you water. It may look dry on top, but still have enough moisture in the root zone 6 inches below the surface. Plants can suffer from too much water (especially in containers) as well as not enough.

* Prioritize your watering. Deep-water trees and shrubs, your landscape’s most valuable and slowest-growing plants.

* Switch to drip. Drip irrigation puts water where plants need it – at the roots.

Heat is often on the minds behind Sacramento Digs Gardening. Here are links to several past columns with heat-related advice:

-- Get Ready for Hot Days Ahead

-- Mulch is Good, and More Mulch is Better

-- 5 Hacks for Shading Your Precious Vegetables

-- Hot Tomato! How to Help Your Vines During High Heat

-- Speaking for the Trees: Don't Forget Them in This Heat

- - For Best Roses in Heat, Watch Water and Mites

And if you’re too late:

-- Rescuing a Heat-Stressed Plant

Finally, for the gardener:

--- Too Hot to Think? Follow These Tips

– Debbie Arrington and Kathy Morrison

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

tomatoes extreme weather Sacramento peppers wilting coping with heat shade cloth squash irrigation weather gardening vegetables heat triple-digit temperatures

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Local News

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of Sept. 8

Temperatures are headed down to normal. The rest of the month kicks off fall planting season:

* Harvest tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons and eggplant.

* Compost annuals and vegetable crops that have finished producing.

* Cultivate and add compost to the soil to replenish its nutrients for fall and winter vegetables and flowers.

* Fertilize deciduous fruit trees.

* Plant onions, lettuce, peas, radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, bok choy, spinach and potatoes directly into the vegetable beds.

* Transplant cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower as well as lettuce seedlings.

* Sow seeds of California poppies, clarkia and African daisies.

* Transplant cool-weather annuals such as pansies, violas, fairy primroses, calendulas, stocks and snapdragons.

* Divide and replant bulbs, rhizomes and perennials.

* Dig up and divide daylilies as they complete their bloom cycle.

* Divide and transplant peonies that have become overcrowded. Replant with “eyes” about an inch below the soil surface.

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!