How to Make Gardening Easier on Yourself During Heatwaves
KEY POINTS
- Optimize Gardening Schedule: Perform gardening tasks during the early morning and late evening to avoid the intense heat of the day, ensuring you stay cool and your plants receive adequate water absorption.
- Smart Watering Techniques: Water your garden early in the morning for deep moisture penetration. Use soaker hoses or drip irrigation systems to keep roots moist and avoid mold and mildew from overnight dampness.
- Prevent Weeds Early: Take preventative measures against weeds in winter and spring using specialty weed killers, herbicides, or tarps. Early prevention reduces the need for labor-intensive weeding during the summer heat.
Summer is a wonderful time for gardens, with everything in full bloom and the sun shining bright, but at the same time, it’s the worst, especially with climate change becoming more prevalent by the year. Specifically, when a heatwave hits, it can be tough to keep your garden thriving without exhausting yourself.
It’s not even just exhaustion, but to a degree, it can be pretty dangerous having to do labor outside in such scorching heat, especially if you’re an elder.
While yes, The scorching temperatures can be hard on both you and your plants, you’ll have to approach this with low maintenance gardening. Even if you have a grand scheme in your mind, again, it’s hot and you and your plants might not be able to fully handle this heat.
So, what can you do? Well, here are some ways to keep your garden flourishing while making it easier on yourself during those relentless heatwaves.
Focus On Early Morning and Late Evening
When it comes to gardening in a heatwave, timing is everything. The early morning and late evening are your best friends. These cooler parts of the day are perfect for getting your gardening tasks done without the intense heat beating down on you.
It might not be ideal, but go ahead and set your alarm a bit earlier or save some time after dinner to water plants, weed, and take care of other garden chores. This way, you’ll stay cool, and your plants will have time to absorb water before the sun gets too strong.
Look Into Smart Watering Techniques
Now, you have to keep in mind that efficient watering is crucial during a heatwave. It’s not just about the timing of when you’re outside gardening (like pulling weeds) but when you’re giving water to your plants, too. Early morning is the best time to water your garden. This allows the moisture to penetrate the soil and reach the roots before the heat of the day causes it to evaporate.
Watering in the evening can also work, but be mindful not to let plants sit damp overnight, which can lead to mold and mildew (snails love this). But is that all? Just the timing? Well, you’ll need to also focus on deep watering rather than light, frequent watering.
If you’re able to (and this can be expensive), try to use soaker hoses or drip irrigation systems to deliver water directly to the soil because it can keep the roots moist.
Prevent Weeds Prior to Summer
One of the main reasons why you have to do a lot of gardening in the summer isn’t just due to cutting grass and water plants, but it’s usually due to weeds. Now, weeds love the summer; that’s when most gardens get infested. But you need to do what you can in winter and spring to prevent weeds from spreading in the summer.
It’s always going to vary where you are and what the weeds are, but there are plenty of specialty killers out there, like broadleaf weed killer or even herbicides for others, such as invasive mint.
If you want to take it to the extreme, you can cover your raised beds with a tarp for a couple of seasons so there are absolutely no weeds that will be present by the time summer comes. However, prevention is the easiest way to avoid dealing with any of this.
