So long, salads. It’s such a bummer when the heat comes on strong and my lettuce and other greens signal their demise by turning bitter and bolting, especially since my wife and I have been enjoying fresh salads practically every night since early April. But at least I had a great harvest of potatoes, onions, and garlic for making potato salad!

And on the bright side, warm-season veggies are hitting their stride, soaking in the sunshine, flowering on cue, and yielding their bounty.

Bush beans and pole beans do well in warm weather, but when it gets really hot their production may slow down a bit. However, black-eyed peas, lima beans, and yardlong beans aren’t bothered by the heat. You can make successive sowings of all beans every two weeks until the end of September.

Issues: Mexican bean beetles can be a nuisance. Adults look like yellow ladybeetles. Control them with spinosad. Fungal diseases can be spread by working in and around bean plants when the soil is wet.

Pollination can be the biggest challenge when growing corn, because corn relies primarily on the wind rather than insects for transferring pollen from the tassel at the top to the silks below. The solution is to simply shake the stalks so that the pollen drops and does its thing, producing milky kernels that cry out for butter.

Issues: Corn earworms hide within the silks and often go unnoticed until you harvest and see the yucky damage at the tip of the ear. Once the silks turn brown, a few drops of Bt applied to the silks will get rid of them.

Cukes are native to tropical portions of India, so they feel right at home in our summer heat and humidity. Whether you prefer slicers or picklers, water plants regularly to avoid misshapen or bitter fruits, and mulch to help maintain consistent moisture. If space is an issue, consider letting the vines grow on a cage or trellis, or look for compact, bush varieties.

Issues: Striped and spotted cucumber beetles can do a lot of damage, but they can be controlled with spinosad. Powdery mildew, a fungus, is quite common. Spray leaves with neem oil or a copper-based fungicide to keep it in check.

Also native to India, heat-loving eggplant is easy to grow. Just make sure to deep soak the plants twice a week in the summer. Tomato cages or stakes are great for supporting the fruit-laden branches, especially on classics such as Black Beauty, but even the cylindrical Asian varieties often need support because they’re so prolific.

Issues: Flea beetles are a common pest. They leave distinctive, shotgun holes in foliage. Control with spinosad.

Watermelon and cantaloupe actually demand two to three months of heat, and a consistent water supply is crucial to their development. Mulch heavily to maintain soil moisture and to prevent developing fruit from being in contact with the soil, a situation that can lead to rot. Withholding water a week before harvesting will cause sugars to concentrate in the fruit. 

Issues: Fungal diseases are common, but a thick layer of mulch and watering the base of each plant will minimize the threat of attack. Flea beetles and cucumber beetles can be a pain, as can aphids, all of which can be controlled with spinosad.

This East African native loves the heat, and it’s a prolific producer. Plants may be slow to take off, but once things heat up they grow rapidly and can reach heights of 6’ or more. It pays to harvest okra daily, ideally when the spears are 4” or less when they’re at the tender best. Stiff hairs on plant leaves can cause an irritating itch, so consider wearing gloves when harvesting.

Issues: Rarely bothered by pests or diseases. Ants may climb up stalks to sip nectar from flowers, but they don’t do any harm.

Peppers laugh at the heat, although the fruit can succumb to sunscald if it’s not shaded by foliage. Plants that produce large peppers may shed their blossoms when temps are well into the 90s, but smaller varieties such as jalapenos and shishitos keep going strong. (I harvest 30 to 40 shishitos every few days from just three plants!)
Issues: Blossom-end rot affects peppers as well as tomatoes. Consistent watering and a thick mulch will prevent its occurrence. Plants may need to be supported with stakes or tomato cages because of the weight of the fruits.

I love squash, be it summer squashes such as yellow crookneck, green or yellow zucchini, or golden Patty pan, both their fruit and their flowers. And I love winter varieties too, especially acorn and spaghetti squash. Unfortunately, however, I quit growing squash years ago, because in my last three gardens at different properties, squash vine borers and squash bugs ravaged my plants, and I’ve yet to find a truly effective control. I hope you have better luck.

I struggle with growing tomatoes too, not because of insect pests or diseases, but because of tree rats, more commonly known as squirrels. I’ve created cages that offer quite a bit of protection, although the openings, which are small enough to keep squirrels out, make harvesting a hassle.

There’s much to be said about getting a great tomato harvest, which is why I wrote this post last year. It’s worth checking out.

Although it sounds somewhat counterintuitive, in the long run you’ll get more from some warm-season crops if you harvest often. That’s especially true of squash, cucumbers, and eggplant. So rather than let the fruits grow to the size of baseball bats, pick them when only 6” or 8” long. They’ll have fewer seeds and be less bitter.

In addition to lots of heat and sunlight, summer crops need lots of water. It’s okay to let the soil dry out for a day, maybe two if skies are overcast, but I typically douse my garden at least every other day. As for my container-grown veggies and herbs, they get soaked pretty much every day.

Forming flowers and fruit requires lots of energy, and plants need essential macro and micro nutrients to maximize production. I use either Espoma Plant-tone or Garden-tone, applied every two to three weeks at half the rate recommended on the label.

I’ve mentioned spinosad several times in this post, so I feel compelled to explain exactly what it is. It’s an all natural, organic, biological insecticide that is in fact a soil bacterium called Saccoropolyspora spinosa. It was discovered quite by accident in 1982 by a microbiologist hanging out at an abandoned rum distillery somewhere in the West Indies.

Spinosad has a near 100% mortality rate, yet it doesn’t harm ladybeetles, lacewings, and predatory mites. However, it is highly toxic to bees, which is why it should be sprayed early in the morning or late in the evening when bees aren’t active. Once it dries, it poses little to no risk.

It’s considered to be the best tomato in the world by chefs, food writers, and millions of home cooks. Yet they make up less than 1% of all the tomatoes grown in Italy, and the region where they’re grown totals a mere 370 acres. So how can American food retailers be stocked with millions upon millions of cans of so-called San Marzano tomatoes? Fair question.