It’s Getting Hotter Earlier. Here’s How I’m Changing My Garden

It's getting hotter earlier and we aren't getting as much rain. It feels like we didn't get much of a winter. We've had beautiful mild weather since fall and now spring is slipping away fast. The weather is changing and my garden needs to change too. So today I want to walk you through what I'm changing, not just to try to keep plants alive but to help my garden and yard handle earlier heat, less rain, and longer dry stretches. Some of these are small changes, some are bigger long-term changes, but all of them are part of how I'm adapting. I'm Angela from Growing in the Garden in Mesa, Arizona. Let's walk through it. One of the biggest things I'm doing is protecting plants earlier. I'm putting up shade cloth earlier than I used to. Temperatures above 90 change things for plants. Things get harder for them. Adding shade cloth once it's 90 degrees helps give plants some relief. Last year I put it up at the end of April. This year, the middle of March. As the weather heats up, sometimes the real problem is that the soil is just too hot. So I'm thinking more about how to protect the soil. I've always been a fan of mulch but this heat has really made me appreciate how important it is. I use one to two inches during the cooler months and more, a lot more during the summer. The soil plays such a crucial role in my garden and I want to protect it and keep it alive over the summer so it's ready for me to make the most of those prime cooler growing months of fall and winter. I have a few places like this lemon tree where I've had rocks in the past. That can be fine for more heat tolerant and desert adapted plants but I'm swapping out those rocks and adding compost and a thick layer of wood chips to this area instead. I'm looking around my yard and thinking where can I swap out rocks for mulch? When I think about soil health it makes me appreciate my in-bed perma composting bins even more. I want those bins active year-round as much as possible because I know better soil means better moisture holding capacity and better resilience when conditions get hard. In the cooler parts of the year the worms are more active near the surface. The bins are amazing at turning food scraps into worm castings and increasing the microbiology in my soil but in the summer that changes. The worms may burrow deeper or be less active near the top. That makes sense. It's hot. So in summer I use the bins a little differently. I still add kitchen scraps but I think of those in-ground bins more like composters during the hottest part of the year. They're still useful. They're still part of how I feed the soil and keep organic matter cycling through the bed even if the worms aren't working the same way they do the rest of the year. On the bigger picture yard side one of the most important long-term changes I've made is adding more rainwater harvesting throughout the yard. I added a rain tank. I've added gutters that lead to basins and swales and berms too. The goal with all of this is really simple. I'm trying to keep every bit of rain that falls on my property. I want to slow it down, spread it out, and sink it into the soil instead of letting it run off and disappear down the street. Now this isn't an instant fix. It's not like one rain tank suddenly changes everything. But over time these are the kinds of changes that help the whole yard hold more moisture, support deeper roots, and become more resilient. That matters more and more when the weather stays dry for longer stretches and the heat arrives early. I've also changed the way I think about the whole yard. It's not just thinking about watering the garden beds. I'm thinking about how the whole property handles water and heat. I'm looking at how I can create cooler microclimates in my yard with well-placed trees and additional ground covers. I'm also much more selective now about what I'm willing to grow in the summer. Not everything earns a spot in the summer. Not everything is worth the effort of trying to protect and push through the hardest part of the year. During a class someone asked me after a record-breaking summer heat wave what I would have done differently at the beginning of summer if I'd known it would be this hot. I thought about that question a lot. Here's my answer. Now I assume summer will be long and hot and plan accordingly. I lean into cover crops. As warm season crops finish up, I plant cover crops like black-eyed peas, okra, and sweet potatoes that naturally grow well in the heat with minimal care and water. I don't grow them for the harvest as much as for the benefit of shading the soil and keeping the soil food web more active during the hottest months of the year. I'd rather choose crops and plants that actually grow well in the heat instead of trying to force something through conditions it hates. That doesn't mean I've stopped trying things, but it does mean I'm more honest now about what's Another thing is that small containers have to be put away when it gets hot. They heat up too much and take too much water. I garden a lot in smaller containers during the cooler months. They allow me to add more flowers and growing space during our great fall and winter growing weather. But earlier heat means I'm putting those smaller containers away sooner. Timing has changed too. If I want a crop to have time to establish and produce before the worst heat hits, I need to plant at the beginning of the planting window. The later in the summer you plant, the harder it is for plants to establish. What I plant changes too. The lack of frost this winter might mean fewer peaches, so I'm looking at any new fruit trees chill hours carefully, staying on the low side and planting them in the coolest areas of my yard just to be safe. But that same lack of frost also means that my freezer is full of tomatoes. I haven't stopped harvesting from tomatoes planted last August, so that mild winter did have some benefits. I think maybe the biggest change of all is the way I think about success in summer and measure it differently now. Success doesn't mean a garden that looks amazing. It doesn't mean big harvests from every bed. For me, success now is keeping the soil and perennial plants alive. Because if I expect summer to look like spring, it's always going to feel disappointing. On the flip side, I want to be more prepared than ever to have a productive garden through the cooler months. Late summer and fall plantings become more important and worth taking time to plan for. So that's what I'm doing differently. I'm not trying to garden exactly the same way I used to and just work harder. I don't think the answer is to beat the climate. I think it's learning how to work with it the best I can, maximizing our cooler season and shifting what I can do to help my yard and garden handle the hard parts of the year. If you're noticing the same thing in your garden, I'd love to know what you're changing too. Let me know in the comments. What a thriving desert garden! Join my monthly online classes, live or on replay, and get instant access to past classes and journals. Bring your questions and let's grow together in Growing in the Garden Academy.