Do you have extra space in your vegetable garden? Have your peas finished producing, your lettuce and other greens gone to seed, your radishes been harvested?
Why not try planting a few late crops this year? Some plants that can be started in late summer include bush beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, endive, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, peas, radishes, spinach, turnips and lettuce. A bonus to starting these crops late is that many of the pests that bother them in spring are no longer around later in the summer.
I tried planting late crops for several years and they never worked out very well. The seeds germinated much faster than they did in spring, but late July and early August are just too hot for young seedlings. Even with daily watering, the seedlings never developed into full-size plants with a good fall harvest. They just kind of dried up.
Finally I found a solution. I planted peas in a square rather than in rows. Then I pounded four tall wooden stakes at the corners of the square and stapled an old sheer white curtain over the top to make a tent. The curtain is quite large so it hung down on the south and west sides, leaving the north and east sides open. This provided just enough light for the plants to grow well, still allowed for good air circulation, and gave them a diffuse mid-day and late-day shade. The peas grew just wonderfully! I used the same set-up with kohlrabi and again, it worked amazingly well.
If you don’t have an old sheer curtain, you can use any light-colored loosely woven fabric. You can also buy shade cloth made specifically for this purpose. A sturdier structure could be made by nailing boards together to make a wood frame to which you can staple the cloth. Another alternative is to make a shade structure from inexpensive wood lattice boards. If you don’t care how it looks, even an old web-woven lawn chair laid upside down in the garden will provide sufficient shade.
Whatever type of shade structure you fashion, plan ahead as to how you will be able to water your plants.
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