After 3 weeks of torrential rain that nearly drown my vegetable garden, we just had the hottest heat wave my garden has ever endured! Many plants had already been killed from torrential rain, and the record breaking heat came to finish the job. I had only one option to rescue my plants: the heat nearly destroyed my garden…this saved it!
How To Build A PVC Hoop House: https://youtu.be/81ri2YEBNZc?si=G21KyTeaPTlw5Tqk
Easy DIY High Tunnel Build: https://youtu.be/l0gt7MhRrVQ?si=It1C_Og_EZqXzkvo
How To Install Shade Cloth: https://youtu.be/SbWcCxV7OOE?si=7tLRpoT6Jrr7iZhj
My Cattle Panel Roof Build: https://youtu.be/wCiZd6Qv75w?si=JgF5mfNLDJVGu994
ALL DIY BUILDS: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gY7BoYBGIHTXtdhw3mMeOyMgLPt8pKR&si=Vj3ZsPI-bV8VO8fk
The following products* featured in this video will protect garden from heat:
Shade Cloth (Many Sizes): https://amzn.to/49bqveh
PVC Snap Clamps (1/2in): https://amzn.to/3SJHjS0
1/8-inch Stainless Steel Wire Rope Cable: https://amzn.to/43AXzda
Turnbuckle Tension Wire Rope Kit: https://amzn.to/3HcpvfM
Stainless Steel Carabiners: https://amzn.to/46mewL8
Tomato Hooks & Plant Clips Kit: https://amzn.to/4mCptOE
Plant Support Clips, 300 PCS: https://amzn.to/3Ftp54b
Fencing Staples: https://amzn.to/43vcyXl
100FT Nylon Rope: https://amzn.to/4l4nn93
Grow Bags (Black): https://amzn.to/4a0MHa5
Grow Bags (Tan): https://amzn.to/4dqSsAD
Weed Barrier: https://amzn.to/4mj7nkl
True Organic All Purpose Fertilizer [5-4-5] (4lb): https://amzn.to/4mroKji
Alaska Fish Fertilizer [5-1-1] (Gallon): https://amzn.to/4d9c1x7
GrowCo Fish Fertilizer [2-3-1] (Gal): https://amzn.to/3RvRwRq
Espoma Bone Meal (10lb): https://amzn.to/4ieYapY
True Organic Blood Meal (3lbs): https://amzn.to/3DvlzVJ
Espoma PlantTone Fertilizer [5-3-3] (36lb): https://amzn.to/4lgP9PW
Espoma PlantTone Fertilizer [5-3-3] (50lb): https://amzn.to/4lgPbr2
Jack’s All Purpose [20-20-20] (1.5lb): https://amzn.to/4iRWtRc
Jack’s All Purpose [20-20-20] (25lb): https://amzn.to/3ZSJeGW
Full Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 My Garden Is Dying From Heat
1:39 How To Protect Plants From Heat
4:04 Installing Shade Cloth Over A Raised Bed
6:36 Protecting A Garden With Shade Cloth
9:04 How To Install Shade Cloth In A Container Garden
10:29 Protecting Fruit Trees From Heat
10:57 When To Use Shade Cloth
13:01 I Need Your Help Using Shade Cloth For Plants!
14:34 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about how to use shade cloth to protect plants from heat waves, want to learn more about growing fruit trees or the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B
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© The Millennial Gardener
#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #vegetablegardening #vegetablegarden
it is horrible outside right now i feel like I’m standing underneath a blowtorrch and this insane heat is destroying what is left of my vegetable garden barely a month ago every single tomato in this raised bed garden right here was perfect but then we got 3 weeks of absolutely torrential rain that drowned them and spread diseases everywhere and that started the problem that you see right here then this massive heat wave came in behind all of the rain and now it is so hot and dry we can’t even get a drop of rain or a cloud and all of this terrible terrible heat is going to finish these plants off i’m going to have to grab every single tomato I possibly can right here because in another week or two all of these plants will be gone so here we are it’s only June 24th and it looks like much of our tomato season is already coming to an end here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina an entire month ahead of schedule versus an average year what’s going on gardeners it’s summer it’s unbearably hot we don’t want to be outside in this heat and our garden is suffering so badly in the heat it may die this happens to some extent every year don’t let yourself get stuck in this death spiral on this video I’m going to show you all how smart gardeners keep their garden alive in extreme heat the information in this video will change your life and help you keep growing all summer long if you’re new to the channel please subscribe hit the bell for notifications and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear it is truly hard outside we hit 99° here in North Carolina the last two days in a row with heat indices briefly exceeding 115° and while this extreme heat wave will eventually come to an end it is going to be hot and oppressively humid for months to come this is not weird weather every year multiple times a year something like this happens and it is critical that we have the tools in our garden to defend against it it only takes one or two persistent heat waves to destroy your garden and all the hard work you put in the solution to this problem is surprisingly simple shade cloth i have been preaching the good news of shade cloth for five years now trying to get as many people on board as possible shade cloth will change your life it is so effective i have eight shade cloth tarps of varying sizes that I use all over my yard and garden and the best part is it won’t just protect your plants it will protect you if you install it overhead you will enjoy working in your garden in the summer again because working underneath the shade cloth overhead is like stepping into a different world a different climate that’s 10 to 20° cooler with no scorching sun beating on you yes I know there’s a hole in my tank top but I’m not messing up one of my nice tank tops to hang a shade tarp on one of the hottest days of the year we want to save the dress tank tops for going out to dinner a lot of gardeners seem to be resistant to giving shade cloth a try especially gardeners at higher latitudes or higher elevations but I’m here to say shade cloth isn’t just for gardeners with long hot growing seasons it is for everyone regardless of where you live you could live in zone 3 Minnesota but 90 to 100° heat waves still happen every summer and it really only takes one or two heat waves to ruin everything in your garden and folks at a higher elevation aren’t safe either because it’s not just about temperature uv index stresses plants just as badly as high temperature and the higher your elevation the more UV damage is caused to your plants due to the thinner atmosphere so even if your summers are cooler in general on average you need to have shade cloth on hand to protect against the heat waves and the times of the year when UV damage is maximum so now that you know why you need it I want to show you some simple ways to install it now before I go any further please note that for any of the items that I’m featuring in this video I will place direct links down to them in the video description for your convenience as for any of the DIY tutorials that I’m mentioning I will also place links to them down in the video description as well i have videos that show you how to build and install all of these different things now for most people the easiest way that they can install shade cloth is by building a little PVC hoop house over their raised bed garden and all you need to do is go to Lowe’s Home Depot or any other large big box store and get yourself some halfin electrical conduits make sure it’s electrical conduit not plumbing pipe because the electrical conduit is treated to be UV resistant then all you will do is you will buy some conduit clamps and you will strap the conduit to the base of the raised bed and then the conduit will easily bend over now if you don’t have a raised bed that you can attach to say you grow in an earth bed or you have a metal raised bed well you can go over to the concrete aisle and you can buy 3/8 in pieces of rebar and pound them a couple of feet into the ground and make sure that they are sticking up about 6 in or so then you can just take the 1/2-in conduit it will slip right over the 3/8 in rebar and you can bend it over so that’s a good way that you can make hoops if you don’t have a wooden raised bed that you can strap it to then all you will do is you will get yourself a shade tarp and you will install it over your raised bed hoops or whatever hoops that you make there you go it doesn’t get any easier than that then you will just take these PVC snap clamps these are/2-in PVC snap clamps they’re very inexpensive you will just snap them to the conduit and that is going to hold this on so the wind won’t blow it off now because this is a mesh it doesn’t catch a lot of wind it’s not like plastic it’s not like very fine insect netting it doesn’t blow much in the wind so it’s very resistant to blowing off but because it is mesh it also does a great job at blocking a lot of the larger insects as well so not only will you be able to reduce your irrigation needs and your plants will be a lot happier because they’re not as stressed in the full sun but you’ll get a lot of insect protection too out of the deal so there you go folks this design is easy cheap and functional the makeshift PVC hoop houses are a great way to protect your plants but what if you want to step things up to the next level and protect yourself as well by erecting the shade cloth high above so you can actually garden under it well for my larger full vegetable garden I have accomplished this and it’s been so much fun doing so now the way I used to do things is I used to run 8in steel cables overhead then clip the grommets of the shade tarps onto the steel cables either with plant clips or carabiners and this worked very well to protect the plants and this method is perfect for most folks with smaller gardens however because my garden is pretty large it was getting annoying to deal with the shade cloth sagging in the middle of my garden when I tried to walk underneath this year I put cattle panel above my garden which allows me to easily roll the shade cloth out and zip tie the grommets on the sides of the tarps to the cattle panel the result is no more sagging and I can walk underneath freely this is by far my favorite design i can’t wait to take you in for a closer look just a few hours ago it was almost unbearable standing underneath here working on these plants but I swear it’s at least 10° cooler now thanks to the shade cloth overhead it is like a whole new world and I feel so much better gardening in these conditions so while it is unfortunately too late for all of the tomatoes in this raised bed these other plantings of tomatoes that are doing much better well there is hope for them they are still relatively green and they don’t have a lot of diseases on them and they are starting to ripen fruits so the season is definitely not lost and we have the shade cloth to protect us for the remainder of the summer there’s still some really nice looking tomatoes in here so even if your garden is a little bit beaten up from the heat don’t fret it’s not too late to put up shade cloth what’s left of your garden will appreciate it not to mention any succession crops that you plant behind the initial crops that you already transplanted there’s still plenty of time for most of us to grow another two or three crops of cucumbers squashes uh smaller melons that fruit relatively quickly i’ll be starting some fall tomatoes any day now to get some early determinants in to harvest through the fall so even if things are beaten up from the heat don’t worry you can still start seeds right now but what if you have a big open area or a container garden that you want to protect well what I did was I made my own makeshift high tunnel out of Tposts and/2-in PVC conduits and it was actually really easy to do i’ll link to a video both above and down in the video description that shows you how to do that then I attach a shade tarp to the structure that I made on top of this high tunnel I pull a big shade tarp overhead i use a close line to weave in and out of the grommets behind and in front of the tosts to tie everything down securely in place the end result is a giant affordable DIY shade tunnel that makes it easy and fun to work underneath again I’ll place links down in the video description to all of the items that I use to build this structure as well as the how-to videos that will show you how it’s actually pretty easy and once you get this shade cloth up above it’s actually fun to be in the garden again no more working in the extreme sun even when it’s 100° out under the shade it’s not only manageable but somewhat comfortable both for me and my plants that’s why I actually extended this overbuild above my garden to hang out into my container garden area because what I’m actually going to do is I’m going to move some of my potted fig trees underneath this little protected overhang right here so I’ll actually have a nice shaded protected walking path and of course if your goal is to protect some fruit trees that are made out of hardwood and they can easily accommodate the weight of a shade cloth on top of them don’t be afraid to just toss the shade cloth directly overhead these are some fig trees that are in undersized containers and they are drying out way too quickly in this heat wave so I just clustered them all together in a protected location against my house and I tossed the shade cloth above and they’re doing fine with the cloth just draping over them so now that you know all about the incredible benefits of shade cloth let’s discuss timing when should we install it and when should we take it down well I’ll give you my rough guidelines i live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina zone 8b where our summers are very long and very hot and very humid and generally speaking I put my shade cloth up either the first or second week of June which is usually between June 7th and June 15th and then I have to take it down by the end of August because that usually coincides with our hurricane season and that works out to be just fine because usually by late August the UV index drops so much that underneath shade cloth the plants may actually get a little bit leggy so roughly early to mid June to mid to late August for me if you’re in a warmer zone you may need to go a little bit longer on each side if you’re in a cooler zone you may only need to have your shade cloth up in late June into July and then take it down by early August you really kind of have to figure that out and fine-tune it over the years if you see your plants getting a little bit leggy where they’re putting on leaves that are kind of wrinkled or they’re und sized that is a sign that they are not getting too much sun and you are putting the shade cloth up too early or you’re leaving it up too long so look for those signs and fine-tune it over the years that being said if you live in a generally cool climate or at a high latitude where you don’t need shade cloth all the time you can just put it up temporarily so throw it up when you get heat waves like this and then you may only need it up for a few days and you can take it right down again gardening is equal parts science and art and while shade cloth is very scientific in its use it’s kind of an art form to figure out when is the best time to use it so take those guidelines I gave you and then modify them based on your climate look at your plants make sure you’re still getting full-size well-developed leaves and that will generally tell you that it’s a good time to have that shade cloth overhead and that is why how and when to use shade cloth i’ve been preaching the use of shade cloth for many years and generally speaking I have only seen rave reviews from its use so please I urge you to give it a try it’s really incredible stuff if you have been using shade cloth for years please post your experiences down in the comments below i’d love to hear how it is treating you and if you’ve had great success please give everybody your location and explain to everyone the dates that you put up shade cloth uh down in the comments so people that may be close to you can use your experience as a guide it would be awesome if we could populate the comment section of this video full of I live here i put them up during these dates and it’s worked great that would be wonderful to share that with the community so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring the notification bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these again I placed all of the product links for these different shade structures down in the video description for your convenience and I also placed lots of DIY guides down there if you want to see the videos for how I installed all of these things in a longer format for everything else I use in real life in my garden please check out my Amazon storefront link expand the video description click on the Amazon storefront link and you’ll see everything I use in my garden in real life while you’re down there please consider checking out my Spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support my channel thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video let’s go play all right mister go down give me that bunny give me that bunny give me that bunny it’s mine it’s mine so good nice catch buddy
good boy one more tug want one more
one more ready and Ah now he’s done it’s too hot out
38 Comments
How are you and your garden managing the heat this summer? Let us know in the comments below! TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 My Garden Is Dying From Heat
1:39 How To Protect Plants From Heat
4:04 Installing Shade Cloth Over A Raised Bed
6:36 Protecting A Garden With Shade Cloth
9:04 How To Install Shade Cloth In A Container Garden
10:29 Protecting Fruit Trees From Heat
10:57 When To Use Shade Cloth
13:01 I Need Your Help Using Shade Cloth For Plants!
14:34 Adventures With Dale
In live in Raleigh NC and have a large outdoor garden and my tomatoes are doing fine. Might be something else going in your garden.
What do you do with all those veggies?? No way you can eat them all is there?
From south Texas here it’s normal day here it’s been a ride to figure out how to grow now but for the first time in a while we got rain and our local plant don’t really like a lot of rain so yeah
Aren’t you moving to Florida bro?? I’m from Florida I live in North Carolina now. These temps ain’t nothin. You might wanna reconsider
Bought a shade cloth a couple of weeks ago thanks to your channel. It has helped my small garden during our intense heat this week. My garden lived another week! lol at the tank top comment.
Why didn't you put up garden plastic and shade cloth? Those poor plants!!!
You owe my dogs a toy… they came running when you squeaked that thing! 😂
I'm in west central Indiana, 6b, I'll be putting mine up for the first time today…. with zip ties! 😂
I’ve learned so much watching your channel! I’m so sorry about your garden. We’re struggling with the heat here in PA so I can only imagine what you guys are going through. Time to start rain dancing! 😅
I'm laughing so hard that I'm crying. "Blow torch" ? haha, same here in Idaho today – in the 100's. Glad it's not just me.
Hi, I have a question. Please help me if I use fruit and bloom booster fertilizer should I use next week Jack 20 20 20?
That was my garden last year, too cold June and then too hot July/August, NOTHING survived. The extensive cold did so much damage that the shade cloth in July/August did not help. Live in Pacific Northwest (Spokane area) but this year, the garden is flourishing, and shade cloths go up today. I set up my tea table and love sitting under the shade cloth and smelling the tomatoes. Sorry about your issues as damage to the garden is so disheartening. BTW, really watch to get to Adventures with Dale! LOL!!!!
MY tomatoes are young!
I will put some more seed in my planter because I want to fill up my tomato garden. We have been at 100 degrees here in California as well.
I’m in 5 b zone. Northeast corner of Indiana. I put up my shade cloth early June. We had very late frost and low 40’s at night until first of June. My plants sat in my greenhouse for 6 weeks and grew very well, but needed outside. Tomatoe plants all turned yellow from the get go, then with the cool nights and lots of rain they looked horrible. Second week of June put up my shade cloths and started fertilizing. My plants recovered very well, then came the extremely high temperatures and uv numbers reached very highnumbers. This is my second year of using shade cloth. Best video I ever have watched! Thank you Millennial gardener!
I have a high tower greenhouse to get up this summer for my raised bed garden, mainly for shade cloth. Happy gardening!
The neighbor here has a lot of trees overhanging which we keep trimmed.
I had some plum tree starts outside the Greenhouse they had holes in the leaves so I moved two starts inside the greenhouse.
The plum tree starts look fabulouse in the greenhouse!
Save your good tank tops for going out to dinner???? haha, you are hilarious
I saw your previous videos on shade clothes for tomatoes. This year, instead of doing shade clothes, I added trellis above the tomatoes that I tie the tomatoes too and then allow beans and cucumber to cover the top. It's added a little bit of shade, but I should have planted the beans and cucumbers sooner
I’m in zone 6 and I noticed that my volunteer tomatoes are just now getting about 6 inches tall and it’s July tomorrow. The ones started indoors months ago have given me one fruit so far ❤ we had an early heat wave that made them all curl up in spring. Luckily they’ve survived thus far
I put together my first greenhouse and it’s actually a very small hoop house 8‘ x 16‘ from repurposed metal hoops of sheds that were destroyed by falling limbs.
It was finally finished the day before the heat wave. The heat inside was 120° while it was 97 outside.
So I looked all over the Internet and I found that shade cloths were the thing that people were using so I ordered one. It was too small. I ordered a second and yesterday we tied the two together and now I need a third to finish the front.
It DEFINITELY makes a difference! Just having put the first one on lowered the temperature by 10°
I live in Philadelphia Pa. I live in the city in a row home and garden on my third floor deck. I took your advice from a previous video last year and put up shade cloth. It was a huge difference! My plants did not bake with all the concrete around us. I have a green stalk which was not under the shade cloth and it took a hit and is now diseased. Great advice! Thank you!
We love growing lettuces and greens in a raised bed just outside our kitchen, and can grow continuous heads of sweet-tasting greens throughout the summer in full sun zone 6 using a shade cloth. They don't bolt or grow bitter and tough. We just had a 3-day heat wave that battered my dahlias growing right next to them but the greens remain sweet and crisp. Thank you for always sharing such great info!
Shade cloth has been a necessity since 2017. It is also great in early spring to protect seedlings, reduce weeds and warm up the soil.
However, if you put them up haphazardly, a gust of wind will cause them to thrash around and do a lot of damage.
Liked this vid. Subscribed a long time ago. Love your vids; I always learn a lot. However… W0W, these shadecloths look like a lot of trouble (for me anyway). I would definitely have to hire someone. West TN, Zone 8a.
Great video thx for sharing, Southern Ohio been way to hot for my outdoor Cannibus grow ✌ I've got some videos
This heat is unreal, I live in Georgia and the heat is bad, I thought that the 3 months of solid rain was bad, but this heat is finishing off my garden. HEY I saw my neighbor black and tan hound dog chasing a rabbit and it was so hot that they both were walking.
I might use shad cloth for cucumbers and squash but I find that the melons just need a mulch.Where I live there is a crop of melons they plant in first week of July when the temperatures are in the 105-110 range on average with warm nights in the 80s and 90s weather the same as Phoenix.even in this extreme heat certain crops can grow because of good soil and good watering practices.I find that certain plants prefer more sun than others and can also deter certain fungi
dont reference heat index when talking about plants silly! that is not a real temperature value!
im in new orleans and its 108 avg here and im having no problems. im even still growing strawberries with no shade over nothing. just gotta have strong plants with high brics and water alot. zone 9A baby if you can grow here you can grow anywhere
Too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, so few months out of the year that are ideal. This is the reality for vegetable gardening in most states. This is why I’m so happy to be growing here in South Florida where frost is nearly unheard of. The winter months are the perfect time to grow and in the summer the temperature hardly rises above 90. I truly don’t know how y’all do it without a greenhouse, having to start from scratch every year and constantly being on the clock😪
Thank you so much! I'm in MD 7B and my tomatoes & peppers are suffering terribly. We've had an index of 110-117° and finally down to 100. I am going to purchase some shade cloth right now! 💕☘️
I'm new to the channel. I'm already loving it. Here's someone who gives you the A–Z on the subject he is talking about. This guy is no nonsense, thank you!
Hi! I’m relatively a new veggie gardener. I wanted to say thank you for recommending shade cloth! I live in Jackson, NJ zone 7a
I never heard of this method and OMG am I so glad I found your channel and took your advice! We had a serious heatwave a couple weeks ago and I walked out to my cucumbers and they literally looked like they were crying! I ran and grabbed my shade cloth and rigged it to my chain link fence and the trellis and draped it over them, had it there for 4 days and I swear it saved my growing babies! They perked right up that first day and stayed wonderful throughout the whole time of the heat wave! Best thing to have if you are gardening! YAY! And thank you again! 😊
Well maybe a hurricane will roll in and cool it down for you
oooooooor… just water more in the morning. i had the same heat conditions, and just went out and watered like crazy every morning, and had no issues. it really doesnt take all this.. just good dirt, enough water and sun. i would only ever use shade cloth for hardening off plants or protecting seedlings. if sunlight is killing your mature plants, something is wrong. if you have plants that dont like full sun all day, plant them in the shade of plants that do.