Gardening: Learn to capture heat to get crops off to a good start

What a crazy spring we are having this year. It started early, which got everyone fired up and ready to plant. A few warm days here and there got things growing, but it was still early and Mother Nature was still in charge. She demonstrated that early last week when gardeners north of Spokane experienced frost.

We did get some well-timed showers that blunted the overall lack of rain that has us under drought conditions for the foreseeable future as a potentially strong El Niño sets in. Keep the water coming and clear out the brush, it may be an epic hot, dry summer.

The early teaser weather had a lot of people planting earlier than usual. Normally, we don’t plant warm season crops until the latter part of May, but many of us fell for the lure of early heat and planted before Mother’s Day, including me with years of experience here. In reality, the soil was still too cold, and the cooler weather resulted in tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and others just sitting in the garden shivering.

As a result, many warm season crops started turning yellow, drooping and looking pathetic. As hard as this is to watch happening for the gardener, it is normal and the plants will recover as temperatures warm into the 70s and above. They may be a bit stunted, but they will produce.

There are ways to capture heat to help your plants out. Covering plants with floating row cover fabric will hold heat in around the plants and help warm the soil. The porous and breathable fabric, sold in garden centers, can be loosely draped over the plants or on top of PVC pipe hoops and left in place through the end of June just before our traditional high temperatures start. In my experience, plants held under the fabric like this can grow to twice the size of plants not covered.

On another point related to heat and tomatoes, I’ve seen a number of pictures of tomato plants already putting out blooms. Unfortunately, until our night time temperatures get reliably above 55 degrees, fruit won’t set so be patient. The heat is coming.

For those who planted early, another challenge was that the soil at the time of planting was still too cold for root development. It is possible to warm the soil around a planting area by laying down black plastic or plastic mulches that capture solar radiation. While it’s better to do this before you plant, it can be done now. I use a solar mulch from Johnny’s Seeds that over a two-week period raised the soil temperatures by ten degrees where I planned to plant sweet potatoes.

Another issue is that seeds like beans, corn, basil, cucumbers, squash and melons all need warm soil to sprout. If you planted these crops early and they haven’t come up, they may have rotted, and you will need to replant them. Fortunately, we still have time to replant and still get a crop.