We are going to be sharing with you a little bit of what we do at Lynette’s Urban Farm in order to get our plants through this summer.
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Hi, I’m Lindsey. Welcome to the Urban Farm today. I’m gonna be sharing with you a little bit of what we do in order to get our plants through this summer.
If you think that the world is headed in a direction that makes you a bit concerned for the future, and you’d like to be as self-sufficient and independent as possible, then you’ve come to the right place. My name is Lynette Zang. Now it’s time to go Beyond Gold & Silver.
So it’s really hot here in Arizona. We have a very harsh climate in the Summer, so it can be kind of a daunting idea to grow things throughout the summer. But I’m gonna show you a few of the things we do that help with that.
In front of me, these are cantaloupe melons, and they are here under our shade cloth. So we have a very basic shade structure. This is about a 20% shade cover. So this just gives them a little bit of relief from the hottest part of the day in the afternoon. And as you can see, they’re flourishing, they don’t show signs of any sunburn. So we know that they’re doing okay in this location. And then these are also getting water through our sprinkler system, and it just gets water at the base of each plant. And of course, melon spread. So as they grow more roots, it can get continuous water. So shade can be one of the most important things you can do to protect your plants from the sun. So under here we have watermelon and watermelon is also under our 20% shade, but it wasn’t seeming to be enough. So we added these small DIY shade structures. We just built them out of a frame and then stapled some shade cloth to them. And this is a bit of a denser fabric. So it has a little bit higher shade percentage, and this is really helped them flourish. So a really important thing to do is kind of experiment with your shade. If you have natural shade like from trees or your house or larger objects in your backyard, that can be a great option, but you can also experiment with building structures like this to provide shade to specific areas of your garden.
Watering is one of the most important things you can do. And it’s really important to have a great watering schedule, especially in the summer, whether you’re hand watering or relying on automatic systems like the sprinkler system, we have, it’s really crucial to look at your plants and understand how they’re reacting to the water. So these tomatoes, were just getting water from our sprinkler system. And when we planted these tomatoes, they were getting water two times a day for just a few minutes. And since then, when it’s gotten hotter, we have increased the number of times and the amount of times that they’re getting watered throughout the day. So just because a plant receives more water doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s gonna thrive in the summertime. We wanna make sure that it’s getting water multiple times a day, so that can really help it just stand the heat of the summer and make sure that those roots in the system underground are continuously getting moisture. Another really important thing to consider in the summer is the time of day that you’re watering. You never wanna water during the hottest part of the day. Typically this is in the afternoon. So here at the Urban Farm, we usually water very early in the morning, about 5:00 AM. Our automatic systems go off then again at 10 or 11, and then not again until the later afternoon when the heat of the sun has gone down for the day. So that’s usually around six or 7:00 PM. So by doing this, we’re avoiding watering at the hottest part of the day. And this can be really important. For example, if you’re using sprinkler systems, you never want your leaves of your plant to be wet when it’s really hot. This can cause sunburn and water makes the leaves a little bit more susceptible to catching the sun’s raise and it can burn your plant. So as you can see here on our cantaloupe, it got some overspray from our sprinklers. So you can see some of the moisture on the leaves, and we’re not gonna worry about this too much because as the day goes on, the leaves will dry pretty soon. And then they’ll be completely dry by the afternoon, but the plant will still have a ton of moisture and the underground root system. It.
‘s really important that we always water when it’s cooler in the day, we want to avoid the hottest parts. So another thing we’re gonna do is we’re just gonna try to keep our plants in a controlled space. So I’m just gonna tuck these melons right back into the bed. And this will make sure that when they’re growing new lateral roots and things like that, that those are getting water. And also the hot cement is gonna have a lot more heat than the soil. So we wanna just be conscious of the areas that we’re keeping our plants in.
