Plants Looking Stressed? Maybe They Need Sunscreen
Before moving to the southwest, the thought of shading my vegetable garden from the sun never occurred to me. Plants LOVE sunlight, right? I thought this especially true for those mid-summer heat lovers, like tomatoes, peppers and melons.
Surviving a few summers here has taught me one big lesson…shade is precious. This goes, not only in finding a cool spot on the park bench under a tree or for the car at the grocery store parking lot, but for plants as well.
In the garden, plants that receive partially filtered sunlight or shade (even if for only the later half of the day) have shown less stress and required less water than those in full sun all day. This break from the intense solar rays allows them to put more energy into producing fruit and leaves instead of pumping water to cool down the exposed parts.
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Here, you can see the difference a little relief from a lightweight, cloth row cover makes on the beetroot and kale:
The long-term plan is to plant a mulberry tree on the west side of the yard in spring. Once fully grown, it should block out the setting sun at the hottest time of day here…evenings. It will also produce those juicy mulberries my family loves so much and leaf mulch for the garden beds. Now that will be some good Function Multi-Stacking!
Excellent post and great advice.
I learned a bit of this recently as I moved from Wisconsin to Arkansas.
Thank you papa-pepper. I'm now in central Texas and the highs are still in the 90s. Shade is a must throughout our 6 months of summer!
Oh yeah, I've spent a lot of time in Texas, and it's a hot one!
Yes, great article and nice pictures!
Thanks future24!
Yep, good lesson. When hardiness says a plant can handle full sun, they're generally not thinking of our sunshine out here in the SW. It's a whole other ballgame.
One of our best planters was the one under our mulberry. Another one is under a screen (that will soon be a grapevine covered pergola). Yet another gets only mid-day sun, with no direct sunshine morning or evening.
Love the first image. Great shot. :)
Thanks! Glad to hear the mulberry idea works. My last surviving pepper plant, that now only gets a few hours sun in the morning, is producing better than it did all summer! Good luck with the grape vine pergola.
My wife's favorite planter is one that has a removable shade cloth. I built a frame to hold the cloth, so she can shade it in the heat of summer then open it up as it gets cooler. This has helped her get a longer growing season. Some do a hoop structure, which we might do. But we're still doing a lot of structure stuff.
Yes, the above is temporary. I plan to get a full cover w/ 60% light transmission next spring and set it up. I like using cattle panels for the frame....easy up, easy down.
Definitely! Shade is as much a resource as light. Thinking about that puts a whole different spin on how you plan a planting space, as your last pic shows. I wonder if it is part of the reason close planting works so well with seedlings.
That Southwest sun can be hard to deal with! And don't leave a wrench out in the sun while you're working on equipment - ouch!
For SteemTrail curation under the Gardening tag, can you add a statement about the source of your photos and video? I figure these are all yours, of course. But doing this regularly will help everyone, including people new to Steemit, appreciate original contributions. If you can add a statement like that, I'm happy to recommend your post for the SteemTrail curation. Thanks!
Yes, these are all photos I took of my raised bed garden. There's a cool, baby bok choy at the top, garden beds shaded w/ some spare row cover cloth in the middle and beets and kale at the bottom.
Thanks! You should have some good gardening during the fall and winter! It will keep everyone in northern regions dreaming about spring, lol.