Trying to find garden greens you can grow in the summer in hot climates? Here’s a list of 13 greens that can grow all summer long no matter how hot it gets.
We live in the hot, humid southeast where daytime temperatures regularly stay in the mid-90s for weeks at a time. If you’re a cicada or a cactus, these are wonderful weather conditions.
However, our hot summers are not hospitable for any of the common greens we can grow in the cooler months: lettuce, spinach, kale… all quickly go to bolt (seed) and die out. The last of the standard greens to die off in our garden is kale, which is now flowering and near the end of its lifecycle in late June.
Kale florets are delicious, but the leaves take on a mustardy flavor due to heat stress and phytochemical changes the plant undergoes to defend its offspring against herbivores.
From July through early October, there’s virtually no chance of growing standard leafy greens outdoors in our climate. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of edible plant leaves/greens in our garden when it’s scorching hot outside…
