The Crops Smart Gardeners Grow as Summers Get Hotter

This has been the hottest, driest summer I’ve ever gardened through, and it’s been a real challenge. For instance, my runner beans have failed to set pods, which has never happened to me before. But on the flip side I’m now able to grow sweet potatoes – and my squash patch has honestly never looked better!

I’m going to share some surprising plants that positively relish growing in the heat, and how you can adapt your garden to help it thrive in the next hot summer.

Plants That Struggle in the Heat

If you’ve been growing vegetables for a while, you’ll probably have noticed that summers just aren’t behaving how they used to. In my neck of the woods, they’re getting much hotter, staying dry for longer, and they’re arriving sooner than most of us expected. So let’s start with what isn’t really working due to the heat, and then we’ll get on to some solutions.

My scarlet runner beans are simply refusing to set pods like they normally should – I think I’ve had literally two pods so far this summer! These types of beans need cooler nights to pollinate properly, and we just haven’t had them. I’ve watched the flowers open, drop, and produce nothing, week after week. Lesson learned: next year, as well as runner beans, to hedge my bets I’m growing fine beans too, because they set pods far more reliably once temperatures climb.

My broccoli and other brassicas struggled too. Flea beetles have absolutely hammered them this year, worse than I’ve ever seen in this garden. Brassicas are cool-season plants at heart, and when they’re under heat stress they’re weaker, slower to grow away from damage, and far more vulnerable to pest attacks.

My fix for next year is all about timing: I’ll be sowing them much earlier in spring, aiming to get a strong, sturdy crop established and largely harvested before the worst of the heat arrives. That will perhaps mean sowing a bit earlier than the seed packets say, to get things in the ground in timely fashion. It will be a bit of trial and error for sure, but I reckon it’s worth pushing the boundaries a bit.

But all is not lost for this year: sowings of other brassicas such as turnip and cabbage can commence once again in late summer, so we can get things growing again with oomph once things have cooled down.

My lettuce and spinach have been bolting noticeably earlier than usual, before I’ve had much of a harvest off them, while hungry blackbirds have been pecking around, disturbing recently planted salads. I don’t blame them! The soil around my seedlings is much softer thanks to regular watering, and this has given the birds a chance to search for worms and other tasty morsels, unlike in other baked-hard areas. I’ve accepted the disturbance because, at the end of the day, I’m not the only one enjoying this garden and our feathered friends have been struggling too.

Extra mulches of organic matter around all my vegetables, especially cool-season favorites like leeks, are a must to keep the soil cooler underneath and to help it hold onto whatever moisture we do get for as long as possible.

Plants For Hot Summers

I’d originally planned to grow okra in the greenhouse this summer, because that’s the traditional advice for growing it in a temperate climate like mine where okra needs all the extra warmth it can get. But with the heat we’ve had outdoors, I made a call earlier in the summer and set up what I’m now calling – perhaps a little pretentiously! – my ‘subtropical bed’, right out in the open ground, no glass in sight.

In it I’m growing okra, chili peppers, and perhaps my biggest gamble: a peanut plant! These three crops have frankly no business thriving in my garden, outside at least, and yet they are growing away strongly and looking very promising. It’s a genuinely useful reminder that as growing conditions shift, it’s worth trialing crops you would normally rule out. Who knows what we’ll be growing in future summers?!

Another experiment that seems to be paying off is sweet potatoes. I’m growing them in an old storage tub rather than open ground, mainly because it warms up faster and holds the heat well, which sweet potatoes absolutely love. I planted young sweet potato slips back in late spring, and since then the vines have completely covered the surface of the container and are spilling right over the sides. This is exactly the kind of crop that’s benefited most from the conditions we’ve had this year, and whereas a lot of my other beds have needed extra watering and babying just to survive, this tub has practically thrived on neglect.

Sweet potatoes are traditionally a bit of a gamble in a climate like mine, needing a long, warm growing season to bulk up properly underground, and I’ve had lukewarm results with them in past years. This time, though, the extended heat has done exactly what they’re yearning for. I’ll definitely be doing this again next year, and I’m tempted to add a second tub alongside it, maybe even trying a different variety to compare.

I went away for ten days at the start of summer and when I came back the plants in one area of my garden had doubled – possibly even tripled – in size! Given how well this patch has performed, next year I’m planting a lot more squash and corn to expand out the entire area. When a crop tells you this clearly that it loves these sun-drenched conditions, you listen and plant accordingly.

I can’t believe how my amaranth has exploded out into a dense thicket. I’ll be leaving the beautiful flowers to mature into seeds for drying and harvesting as a tasty grain. More of this next year too I reckon!

Tomatoes and basil have properly come into their own this year as well. In a typical, cooler summer, basil in particular can sulk; it wants heat, real heat, and it’s finally getting it here. Same story with the tomatoes. They are rocketing away, ripening faster and are coming good in far greater numbers than I’m used to. I’m growing far more of both next year with a plan to turn the surplus into sauces I can preserve so I’ve got a taste of summer to fall back on through the colder, darker months.

Coping with Drought in the Garden

A big part of coping with high heat and lack of rain comes down to mulch, spread on the soil surface to shade it and reduce evaporation. But the grass clippings I normally rely on have been in short supply since the grass stopped growing due to the heat, so I had to get creative.

I’ve beefed things up considerably this summer thanks to a combination of part-rotted compost materials taken straight from the heap and scavenged from elsewhere in the garden. That includes dried out leaves, old bits of garlic stalk, wood shavings and chippings – basically anything organic I can get my hands on. I’ve even torn up my toilet roll tubes and bunged those onto beds too – literally anything!

It’s made a real, tangible difference to how much water my beds held onto between waterings, and the soil underneath stays noticeably cooler to the touch than the exposed ground nearby. I’m already planning to bring in a lot more organic matter ahead of next season so I’ve got a steady, reliable supply ready to go before the heat sets in again. No more scrambling to find enough material once the beds are already drying out!

This year I fortuitously installed more water storage in the shape of water barrels and an IBC tank, positioned right where I need them most, close to my crop beds. These were a godsend, but it's been so dry they actually ran empty, and because there are water use restrictions in place I couldn’t refill them by hose. But up until then they made watering far less of a chore during the hottest stretches.

Longer term, my goal is to add even more rainwater storage, because if summers keep running this dry it’s not a luxury anymore – it’s essential kit. Never mind 1,000 liters, it would be good to aim for something more like 20,000!

Follow-On Crops for Cooler Weather

Looking ahead, I’m getting ready to put in some hardy autumn salads including chicory, radicchio and endive, to follow on once earlier crops have finished up. If the heat’s still hanging around when I come to plant them, I’ll suspend shade cloth over the top or just tuck them into a shadier corner of the garden to help them get established without stressing straight away.

I’m also considering something I’d never normally do: planting more cucumbers and more tomatoes this late in the season. By the book, it’s far too late for both. But given how the season’s been running, there’s a good chance I’ll get away with it – we’ll see.

It genuinely feels like the cooler, wetter summers I used to garden through have been replaced by something closer to a Mediterranean or Californian climate, at least for the summer months. My job now is simply to adapt to the new reality, playing loose with what the traditional gardening calendar says should be happening.

If there’s one thing I’d want you to take from this, it’s that adapting doesn’t mean starting from scratch or ripping up your whole plan. It means mulching a bit heavier, trialing crops you might once have overlooked, collecting more rainwater, and embracing shady corners.

If your garden’s also been behaving strangely recently, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. What’s thriving for you, and what’s given up the ghost?

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