veggie gardening in the South!

[rainbowgardener]

So we've had temps around mid 90's pretty consistently for almost a month now and going on for the foreseeable future. The forecast for 7/14 - 7/17 is 96, 96, 97, 98, clear and sunny all those days! I looked it up, historical temperature averages (not even accounting for global warming) the Chattanooga average high temperature is 90 degrees, every single day from June 30 straight through until Aug 11 (when it goes down to 89!)

What likes the heat:

Peppers, bell peppers and especially hot peppers
Squash - growing and fruiting like crazy!
by hearsay okra, but I've never grown any
Basil (except that it is under attack by Japanese beetles), but needs a lot of water in this weather

kale and swiss chard are going strong, but the kale is being really chewed up by something, I haven't figured out what

Corn - my third planting of corn is doing the best and looks just amazingly healthy, thick stalks, lots of deep green leaves

sage, rosemary, lavender, thyme

sweet potato - not planted yet, but the sprouts are growing fast


What isn't doing so well:

Tomatoes have pretty much shut down production. I have three plants in one bed and three in the other. The back one gets more afternoon shade than the front. In the spring the plants in the sunnier bed were doing better. Now that this weather has set in, the plants with more afternoon shade are doing better. The sunnier ones aren't producing and are really struggling with septoria. I know some of our Southern folks have talked about just pulling the tomatoes and planting new ones when the weather breaks. I'm starting to think about that. I'm not particularly growing heat resistant varieties, will have to try that.

Oregano: I would have thought it was one of those herbs like sage and lavender, but apparently not

Beans - I've been trying to fill in the spots where other stuff was pulled with beans, but having trouble getting them to sprout. The kidney beans and pole beans that were planted earlier are struggling with some fungal disease. The edamame beans planted earlier are an exception, though and are going to town. Harvest soon!

[applestar]

What about southern peas and butter (baby Lima) beans?

[gumbo2176]

Same here as far as results. Oh, and okra is a heat loving, drought tolerant plant that thrives in our southern climate. It is one of my best summer producers.

Beans are gone, pickling cukes are now pulled as of yesterday, squash succumbed to the dreaded SVB's, and some of my pepper plants showed distinct signs of root knot nematodes and were pulled since they were so sickly looking and not producing. My once thriving area of parsley has dried up in this heat and no amount of care could save it.

Hot peppers, eggplant, slicing cukes, rosemary, basil, oregano and my bay leaf plants are doing great, as is my aforementioned okra.

I didn't plant edamame this year, but like you have found, it does well in the heat and is one of the plants to I like to harvest all at one time for the bulk of my edamame stash put in the freezer for later use after blanching them is salted water.

Summer gardening in this heat is a real chore and as I get older, it is getting to be one I may forego in the near future. My best gardens are in the fall and early spring with less pests, much better temperatures for working, less need for watering and a lot less weeds to deal with. Win/Win situation in my book.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, I'm not spending much time in the garden! Watering when I need to mostly. Otherwise everything is coasting. My no work gardening style pays off!

I will have to try the southern peas and butter (baby Lima) beans - not things I have ever grown before, but I have to learn new things for this climate!

[applestar]

Haha I just realized -- baby limas might be called butter peas -- -- I'll stop and let someone else clarify.

..but they might be different varieties too --- yeah I'm really confused now. I do have the one called Dixie Butterpeas which was a bush variety. And I'm trying to grow some Christmas Limas again but both of these barely make it to maturity before frost here.

[imafan26]

I don't get that hot usually until August when the temperatures can reach the century mark. It is 70 degrees now and will be going up to about 82 which is normal for us. We are getting a bit of summer rain which is welcomed except for the annoyance. Usually summer rain is associated with El Nino so it is unusual with LaNina.

Corn likes the heat
eggplant, squash (except the mildew makes for more fungal issues), Asparagus and wing beans do well in the heat because of their tropical origins, sweet potato, NZ hot weather spinach, gynuura, swiss chard, hot peppers, bell peppers are hanging in there, and pak choy. My tomatoes are still producing even though the plants are very old. The smaller tomatoes will take heat much better than larger tomatoes. To get tomatoes to produce in the heat you need heat resistant ones, but if you are fussy about the flavor, your choices may be limited. I like sungold, sunsugar, spoon (current), heatwave II, Sioux, Arkansas Traveller, and Creole. I tried the Florida tomatoes but while they have good heat tolerance, they don't have the disease resistance I need for them to survive.

I planted pak choy, beets and squash at my community garden. It is at 827 ft so a little bit cooler and I can plant greens where they get shaded by the citrus trees for part of the day. The citrus trees are in fruit now in various stages of ripeness. The calamondin always has fruit. The mandarins and meyer lemon have immature fruit. In my home garden I have kale and the Brussels Sprouts are still hanging in there altough I have yet to harvest a single sprout and now the kale is too bitter to eat. The strawberries are multiplying and the lemon grass could use a bigger pot. Green onions grow well now. I can still get soy beans, cucumber, Poamoho green beans (bred for Hawaii), jicama, and most of the herbs are fine except for sweet basil which is still getting downy mildew with the rain. Papaya, taro and ginger don't mind the heat. The taro will be ready in the fall and the ginger about November. Papaya will flower at 5 months old but will produce continuously for a few years or until I cut it down because it gets too tall.

After I harvest what is left, I will solarize the beds. It is hard to keep them watered enough this time of the year and solarizing is the most productive thing to do and then add more compost and prep the beds to hopefully plant again in October.

The only thing that is futile to try to grow now is cilantro. It will bolt in a month and a half.

[Lindsaylew82]

You don't like okra, Rainbow?

You could definitely fill those gaps with okra!

Our tomatoes are beginning to struggle. But they are still putting out fruit! The second plantings are about a foot high, and looking lovely. Some are getting blossoms and fruiting.

Cucumbers are getting powdery mildew. They are still producing though. It rained enough last night to wash off what I had just sprayed, then stopped will need to repeat that tonight.

Melons are coming on.

Corn is silking.

Just reseeded okra, and it's coming up! It was warm enough this spring, so our 1st planting failed. I love okra, and I'm seriously missing it from our personal garden!

The heat is a real chore. I work till 5 daily, so I get a good hour out there usually from 7-8, and it's not misery at that time.

[Susan W]

Sigh. I've mentioned some of these factors before, usually ignored.
1st year garden. Some things go nuts, others not so much.
Weather? As mentioned, you didn't re-settle that far south of previous. You now have way bigger spread, and perhaps the veggies planted are more southern, or just now you have more space!
This year, winter and summer not normal. This past 2016 winter very mild. Summer! 90+ for a month now not normal.

Herbs. I think I have mentioned normal watering, and decent soil. Most like a break from afternoon sun. The louder voices here look at me like I'm crazed. Oh well.
Veggies coming on now? I don't grow many, as I am at the farmers market 1 -2/week. Yes it is HOT! Squash coming on crazy. Tomatoes coming in with some good heirlooms. Corn hard to come by at market. Okra just coming in. Melons starting to roll in. I don't do peppers of any kind, but they are abundant.
Short window, if any are green -English peas. I got some nice ones earlier. Also spinach.

I missed a few. Oh well.

[imafan26]

Herbs I get most of the year. There are just a few I perennially struggle with. Sage, lamb's ears (its not edible but it feels so nice.) and Stevia. My stevia is doing ok, it is just going to seed very fast so I don't really have a chance to propagate it.

Tennessee is a long way off from me. Only NZ spinach can take the heat and humidity now. Lettuce bolts and tipburns even the heat tolerant ones. Green onions don't seem to care, they bloom in the Spring but otherwise they go year round here.
I can grow three crops of corn in a year, but I did not start on time. Next month I will have to start the broccoli seeds and hope the snails leave them alone this time so I can get broccoli in November and it won't run into my corn planting time.

[pepperhead212]

As for tomatoes, I am still looking for some which will withstand heat, just enough so that they won't drop all of their blossoms in the week or two long heat waves up here. Won't help you much in that CONSTANT mid to high 90s, but I have gotten a few varieties from Florida gardeners, though they have that method you mentioned of pulling them about now, and replanting, maybe the seedlings about now or a little after, to have them ready for Sept. Creole and LA Gulf State are two new ones I got this year from FL, and they supposedly do well there. Creole was my first ripe non-cherry this season, and it had good flavor, though it's not going to win the taste test when I start getting all the others in, I'm sure.

Eggplants can also drop blossoms in the heat. One year I had 7 varieties growing, and only two kept producing through the intense heat wave we had - 11 days 96º or higher, and a couple just over 100º. Hari - a long, skinny green EP from India, similar to Thai Long Green, and LA Long Green, though it produces much more than those, and much earlier. The plants grow to over 6' tall, and keep producing until frost kills them. Neon - a hybrid, which is one of the best producers I have ever grown. It is a light purple variety, with a good flavor, which never gets bitter, even when I forget about them in the garden and they get a little seedy! It didn't do quite as well as the Hari in that heat, but it didn't stop, and came back with a vengeance, once the heat dropped.

As for beans, Red Noodle Beans are the only bean that produced through that heat wave, though that was the only time it got hollow - something other varieties of long beans do regularly - but again, it stopped this, once the heat went down to the low 90s. Not everybody likes the noodle beans, and they are a late (about 85 day) starter, but the only heat proof one I have found!

[rainbowgardener]

Sigh. I've mentioned some of these factors before, usually ignored.
1st year garden. Some things go nuts, others not so much.
Weather? As mentioned, you didn't re-settle that far south of previous. You now have way bigger spread, and perhaps the veggies planted are more southern, or just now you have more space!
This year, winter and summer not normal. This past 2016 winter very mild. Summer! 90+ for a month now not normal.

Herbs. I think I have mentioned normal watering, and decent soil. Most like a break from afternoon sun. The louder voices here look at me like I'm crazed. Oh well.
Veggies coming on now? I don't grow many, as I am at the farmers market 1 -2/week. Yes it is HOT! Squash coming on crazy. Tomatoes coming in with some good heirlooms. Corn hard to come by at market. Okra just coming in. Melons starting to roll in. I don't do peppers of any kind, but they are abundant.
Short window, if any are green -English peas. I got some nice ones earlier. Also spinach.

I missed a few. Oh well.

Hey Susan - I do listen and learn from you! I'm sure I really should have specified more "my first veggie garden in the South." Obviously conditions vary from year to year and we are living in global warming times. Nonetheless it is true that the Chattanooga historic average daily high is an unvarying 90 degrees for a solid six weeks. Obviously actual temperatures always vary around the average. Its only about 5 degrees hotter than Cincinnati averages in July, but gets there a little earlier and stays a little longer. It may not seem that way to you, but the difference between zone 6a and zone 7b gardening feels real to me. The direct sun is just hotter here. More direct sun rays are hotter. Which is not complaining -- I love it here, the warmth (the rest of the time!), the growing season, how fast things grow, and the incredible blue skies all the time! And yes, lots of things like a break from the hot afternoon sun, that could handle it where I used to be.

Yeah, my garden peas were planted later than they should have been, because I was still building the the garden beds. Then they took a long time to start producing, so had a short production window. The sugar snap peas, planted at the same time in the same bed, started producing a lot sooner and kept producing a bit longer, so had a much longer window. I might just plant those next time.

[Gary350]

I am surprised your tomatoes are not doing good and seeds are not sprouting. Your only 120 miles south of me, it was 102 degrees here yesterday according to Nashville TV News. This time of year it usually stops raining and is dry as desert 107 to 109 degree last 3 weeks of July and dry in August too. It is interesting your having 90 degree weather but your higher elevation than us I guess that is the reason why Chattanooga gets more snow than Nashville too. My garden has been getting hit every evening with high winds and thunder storms my corn has blown down flat on the ground 3 times this week I keep standing it up again. I have picked beans 3 times and have 2 more rows to pick planted about 1 month apart. Tomatoes are loaded with too many green tomatoes to count, I have 49 ripe tomatoes in the kitchen waiting to be canned in mason jars. Yellow squash and zucchini are making more squash than we can deal with about 5 per day now the plants look like they are going to die. Okra is about 3 feet tall and keeping me busy picking it every day. Water melons and sweet potatoes are doing good. 3 rows of onions and 3 rows of potatoes look good they should be ready to harvest soon. No grass and no weeds in the garden, no work to be done expect harvest what is ripe. 60 mph winds blew some of my tomato plants over, I stood them up again. I have 5/8" diameter cement rebar 8 feet long holding up the tomatoes rebar is only in the ground 12" all this none stop rain makes the soil too soft the rebar blows over anyway. Bell peppers and banana peppers are doing good we have been eating them every day in salads and omelets. I hope corn is ready to harvest before we take off to Michigan for 8 days Aug 4th I would hate to loose a good crop of silver queen corn.

[rainbowgardener]

So not too different from me, except the tomatoes. What variety/ varieties of tomatoes are you growing?

Otherwise I have already eaten my potato crop (it was only a 4x6 bed) and the first two plantings of corn. Third planting is looking great and is tasseling. Bell and jalepeno peppers doing well. I haven't grown okra or melons. I didn't grow summer squash, but the winter squash is huge and growing fast and making lots of flowers and squash. Getting ready to plant sweet potatoes.

We are having hot and humid and muggy. Not as much rain as this place usually gets, but never goes too long with out at least some rain. Last night we had a big storm with thunder and lightening that went on and on and on, but judging by the soil this morning which is not wet very far down, it didn't actually drop that much water.

[Gary350]

It rained most of the night here too I raised the bedroom window enough to listen to the rain and thunder. I am growing several different tomatoes, beef steak, beef master, big beef, super star, early girl, rutger, beef steak from seeds, cherry tomatoes. The beef master and big beef are hybrids they are producing a lot of tomatoes, they are not true beef steak type tomatoes but they do have a good flavor. The real beef steak tomatoes and rutger and slow producers. I planted my garden late this year because of all the rain. In the spring it rains almost every day from Feb to June it is hard to plant anything until the ground can be worked. It is too wet or too hot to plant greens like, chard, lettuce, cabbage, peas, in the spring so I plant those Aug 15th. I planted a 40 foot row of beans 2 weeks ago they all came up. I planted more squash last week nothing coming up yet. There is confliction information about how much rain we get, online says 120 days per year, another place says 185 days per year, channel 5 weather man says 300 days per year for middle TN area. I know it rained 4 hours last night but the garden does not seem muddy.

[Lindsaylew82]

I'm trialing Rebel Yell this year. It's a pink tomato that is supposedly tolerant of our southern growing issues. It's one of the replacement plants! I'm excited to try them! I'll definitely post about their habits once I get a better feel of them, and see what they offer.

[Allyn]

I've said before my tomatoes are done for the summer. The 'regular' varieties stop setting blossoms when the temps consistently get over 85 degrees F and the 'heat resistant' varieties stop setting blossoms when the temps are over 95 degrees F. So all tomatoes here have stopped setting blossoms.

If the plant is healthy, I could nurse it through the heat until fall when the temperatures start coming down in late September; then the plants will start up again, BUT. . . the humidity here has me fighting mildew- and fungus-related problems so I find it best to just not try.

It is much too hot outside for me to be active outdoors in July and August. I'm a born-and-raised Yankee from the Northeast. I can take the summer heat here for all of about 15 minutes before I start falling out. That's about enough time to water the peppers and whatever else is still surviving without extra care, but then it's right back into the air-conditioning for me.

[gumbo2176]

I hear you loud and clear Allyn. I got out in the garden earlier today and pulled the last of the tomato plants and their stakes out of the ground, cut the plants up and put them in large trash bags since they had mold and fungal issues. Then I spread 5 more large bags of grass clippings and leaves I got from the grass cutters in the local cemeteries. I now have about a 1 inch thick layer of clippings and leaves over my entire garden and am letting them dry out before tilling them under to get things ready for the fall garden.

Needless to say, I was soaked by the time I got back inside and it took about 30 minutes being inside before I finally stopped sweating and could take a shower. But the cold beer sure felt good going down.

[Gary350]

I hear you loud and clear Allyn. I got out in the garden earlier today and pulled the last of the tomato plants and their stakes out of the ground, cut the plants up and put them in large trash bags since they had mold and fungal issues. Then I spread 5 more large bags of grass clippings and leaves I got from the grass cutters in the local cemeteries. I now have about a 1 inch thick layer of clippings and leaves over my entire garden and am letting them dry out before tilling them under to get things ready for the fall garden.

Needless to say, I was soaked by the time I got back inside and it took about 30 minutes being inside before I finally stopped sweating and could take a shower. But the cold beer sure felt good going down.

When my tomatoes stop producing because of heat I plant new tomatoes from seed where, squash, beans, potatoes, onions, etc use to be. The new plants do much better than the old plants heat does not seem to bother them much. By they time they are large enough to make tomatoes weather has cooled off and they make good tomatoes.

[Allyn]

When my tomatoes stop producing because of heat I plant new tomatoes from seed where, squash, beans, potatoes, onions, etc use to be. The new plants do much better than the old plants heat does not seem to bother them much. By they time they are large enough to make tomatoes weather has cooled off and they make good tomatoes.

If I were just a little farther north, that would probably be a viable plan. I'm not just battling the heat, though. The humidity here is oppressive. It's not just hot; it's steamy hot. I would probably have the same fungus/mildew problems with the new plants.

If I start seeds now, though, to set out in September, the fall weather here can be glorious and a fall garden can produce even better than the spring garden. We don't get snow, so I can harvest right into December if I keep an eye on frost predictions.

[Susan W]

I don't want to start a tomato or mud sling battle, but a couple of glaring things. Sigh.
RG -You moved a bit south, then experienced one of the warmer winters on record, followed by unseasonable hot summer (starting earlier than normal). Last summer normal, after an unseasonable cold and lasting longer winter. We have stuff that wintered or is coming back that shouldn't have, and year before lost stuff that we normally don't.

You might want to check your geography, Gary. If you go 120 mi south, are in AL, perhaps Birmingham towards Montgomery. RG is near Chattanooga, east and a bit south by latitude from you.

[gumbo2176]

I'm in the same boat as Allyn. I won't even think of putting tomato plants in the ground until sometime in September because of the fungal issues that stem from our humidity. July and August are known as our "Dog Days" and it is absolutely miserable to be outside for most folks down here.

I like the fact that most falls I can have fresh tomatoes for Thanksgiving simply by walking out my door and picking them off the vines. I too have to keep an eye on frost, or more specifically a fairly hard freeze that will take out tomato plants overnight. If that happens and I lose some, I simply make salsa verde and fried green tomatoes. Can't lose that way. LOL

[lakngulf]

I agree that keeping tomato plants viable in this heat is a tough task, normally hit or miss each year. This year I have several plants ok so far ( I am able to shoot the water to them from the lake). At my Mom's we have a second crop of tomatoes on the way (so far so good)



Also, I have some small plants in the greenhouse. My plan is to plant them in the next couple of weeks down the middle of these two rows of corn. The corn has been picked and is in the freezer, but I am hoping the stalks can provide some shade for the young plants. Once the tomatoes get going, I will take out one row of the corn, probably on the east so the west row can continue to shade the plants.

[rainbowgardener]

I do feel like I am having to work a bit harder, mainly on the bug front. Some of that is probably being more Southern and some of it is probably just a new garden not well in balance yet.

I had little trouble with Japanese beetles before, because I had lots of wild grape for them. Without that, my basil is being a pretty good trap crop, but I mind sacrificing the basil more. But I never saw the green June beetles before and at different times, have had swarms of them. Plus whatever is eating the kale. And leaf-footed bugs (which I had never seen before) and various other unidentified beetle-ish types. Plus a worse attack of leaf miners than I am used to (don't have any velvet leaf planted yet for trap crop). Don't have as many birds yet, though we do have feeders and hummingbird feeders, and bird bath and bird houses. Fewer flowers, so probably fewer beneficial insects....

And lots of fungal disease. My tomatoes always did get septoria, but not this early and not this hard. And it is on top of physiological leaf roll which I hadn't really seen before, so the plants look especially ragged. Beans have fungus. One of my squash plants is getting fungus.

I am actually trying a lot of the remedies I usually just told other people about, like ordering Neem, doing the milk treatment, using a lot more compost tea than I ever had.

Until it got to be high summer (past the summer solstice), I was kind of going wow! gardening in the South is amazing, so easy! Gardener's paradise! Then summer really hit. I still love it (six weeks of 95 degrees notwithstanding!), but it isn't as easy....

[applestar]

This is going to be really interesting and challenging for you to find out the little and big ways your gardening style will have to change. There are micro-climates within my little patch of garden, so I can imagine that any kind of change in location, especially a substantial one like yours, will result in distinctly noticeable differences. Plus, of course, you are starting to and trying to convert this property to your own environmentally sound methods and dealing with after-effects of what was going on before.

It will be interesting to see how your impressions and views alter or are re-affirmed over the course of next several years.

... I recently converted my Numbers garden "agenda" -- this is separate from my journal or diary, I use this for verbally planning ideas and recording significant mile-stones and events as I think of them in quickly jotted notes. I used to have all the garden beds and areas along the Vertical axis in rows on a single sheet with dates along the horizontal axis in columns stretching out. But this year, I decided I wanted to be able to compare more easily from year to year.

I used to have a paper 5-year Garden Journal book -- have you seen them? -- you can see what you did on the same day each year. I wanted it to be like that but dividing each month into B, M, E for more flexible dating system 1-9, 10-19, 21-30/31. I've changed the format of the worksheet that so each bed/area is a tab and the "calendar" lines up so I can compare from year to year. FYI in case you might want to do something similar

I'm not always diligent about synchronizing all of my various little recording and note taking methods so there are some glaring missing info and stuff -- rather embrassing really -- but you get the idea. What I post here at Helpful Gardener forum has been an invaluable record as well and I often go back to check my facts or methods, etc.

[rainbowgardener]

I was just looking at the micro-climate issue today, while I was out watering.

One of my (8x4') beds that is oriented east to west has some purple basil plants at both (short) ends. So they are only 8' apart but the one on the west end gets the afternoon shade a little earlier than the two on the east end. They were all planted the same time from the same seed. The one with the extra shade is clearly doing better, darker purple, not tending to fade out, and just healthier and crisper looking and a little bit bigger.

Similarly tomato plants in the bed that is farther west and a little shadier are doing better than ones about 12' east of them. Not struggling as much with septoria, not showing the physiological leaf roll.

Obviously that is now, with the heat wave going on. In the spring the tomatoes with a few more hours of sun did better.

But it is amazing how much difference 8 or 12 feet can make!

You are so much better than I am about record keeping! I have a couple of those paper garden journals and have never been very consistent about keeping them. My main record keeping is here , which makes me more diligent about updating here than I might be. The only other things I have are a seed starting spread sheet, what seeds I started (under the lights) on what dates each year, germination conditions (light, heat, etc), date planted, days to germination. That's been very helpful to my seed starting operation. Then I have hand drawn on paper maps of my garden, what was planted where and what followed it in success. Never computerized that. That's it!