Sunny Georgia area vegetable garden

Hello,
I have watched for when the sun goes up and down in certain parts of my yard but I sincerely feel like the sun beams down all day in areas that would be appropriate for gardening.(Wet spots) Last year, I did tomatoes and cucumbers. The cucumbers did well for a while but then the temp. got so hot that they died! This year, I really want better success. I was thinking of a container garden with one of those coolaroo sun sails over it. Does that sound okay?

Hmmm... I don't know why your cucumbers didn't do well in the summer - they like hot weather. Did you also have high humidity? If so, perhaps they were plagued with powdery mildew - that will kill them for sure.

Are you in Georgia or Alabama?

I'm in DEEP south Georgia, and I find that it gets so hot in the summer, even heat-loving plants suffer and die in the middle of summer. The bright side of it is that you can potentially do two crop rotations. Start seeds as early as possible, get your first harvest, and in the depths of the summer heat, start another round of seeds and do a fall crop.

basilandbella - we had some triple digit temperatures here last summer, too. Our water bill became so high, that when August rolled around, we quit the garden and let everything die!

The only thing that managed to get through until fall were the sweet potatoes. Many of them were small and mis-shapen, but they still tasted great!

I'm going to do what you suggested, start more seeds (indoors) during the heat of summer and put out transplants for a fall crop.

Some hot peppers do thrive in the unrelenting heat. Tomatoes don't. This year I'm going to leave the tomatoes in the ground, then cut them back when the heat gets bad, and see if they come back when it cools off. Has anyone tried that in the past? I figure that it's worth a short.

Last summer, my tomatoes just stopped growing in the hottest time. They just sat there. In September when the temps came down a little, the tomatoes started producing blooms. I got fruit in October. My sweet peppers did exactly the same thing. BTW, I am near Savannah.

milesdt - You probably have a later frost date than we do here in Charlotte, NC. Even though my maters will start to grow again in September, we get our first frost anywhere between the first week of October and the middle of October, so there isn't time for the maters to ripen.

I'm in Atlanta, so I suffer with the rest of you through the heat and dryness. Last year I did well with peppers, corn, watermelon, and carrots--but the rabbits got to my carrots before I could! This year, I added a chicken wire (though its now called "poultry fencing", much to my amusement!) fence around my edibles, and laid a piece of plastic--as in, MUCH less stiff--chicken wire across the top. I plan to cover it with shade cloth as soon as we hit mid June, and not remove it till September!

Gardenhopeful, my suggestions are these--stay away from the leafies until fall. Cucumbers are very thirsty plants, so if you grow them this year, check them at least ever other day to see if they need water. If you don't have a rain barrel, consider investing in one, as it lets you water more frequently without upping your water bill. It doesn't need to be fancy--my mother-in-law has an extra trash can she sticks under the gutter to catch drips that works quite well! Mix sphagnum peat into your dirt, as it holds more water than soil. And mulch with bark chips, not pinestraw, to an inch or so deep. I use pine chips (no splinters) and cypress mulch (very dense wood). Check your cultivars to make sure you're using heat-tolerant varieties. And most important, don't give up! Your garden can and will be successful, it just takes time to get used to the conditions you're gardening in. But once you catch the knack, nothing can stop you!!