- Gets hot in the greenhouse, Jacques. - Way too hot for me! - In fact, it doesn't just get hot there. It gets hot in our climate
and maybe in yours too. - I mean, last year was definitely one of the hottest driest
years on our record, so. - Yeah. In this video we're gonna
give you seven crops that do really well in hot dry weather. Our first crop for heat
loving climates is going to be spinach, but actually
not this beautiful spinach that I have right here. This will not love the heat. In fact, I'm talking
about Malabar Spinach, named after a region in
India where it is from, sort of a tropical,
subtropical vining plant that you can use the leaves of in curries, in stir fries and such. But it grows quite a bit differently from our classic spinach
friend right here. In fact, you really want
to give it a healthy amount of soil, rich, well draining soil. Keep that soil moist at all times. If it dries out, the
flavor goes a bit bitter, and you really want to put it on some kind of climbing structure,
trellis, cage, et cetera, because it is a crazy vining plant. In fact, about 50 days
after you plant it out, just start harvesting it, just start eating it as much as you want because it grows like absolute crazy, on the sort of vining setup. You've got two different types, Basella Alba and Basella Rubra. Alba has the white stem,
and Rubra has the red stem, kind of dealer's choice. I've grown red in the
past, I've enjoyed it, but to be honest with
you, it works in the heat, but if I can grow
standard spinach, I will, because I do prefer this flavor. But let's say you're in Arizona, let's say you're in New Mexico, this might not really be an
option for you much of the year. So, give Malabar Spinach a try. - This next one is a
classic southern staple, and that is okra. Now, there are a lot of
different varieties of okra. Clemson Spineless 80 is
probably the most classic, and spineless is the key word there, because there are some okras,
they have some crazy spines. I remember reading a review
for this one called Alabama Red where somebody literally said they had to burn down their garden 'cause there were so many spikes that they couldn't even harvest it. So, here's what you wanna do. You wanna grow your okra out beforehand because it's a heat loving plant. This is truly one that loves the heat more than probably any
other that I could think of. Now, this is a staple in the
south, which makes sense, and it hails from Ethiopia in Africa. When you plant this out, you wanna kind of do 18 inch spacing. And the cool thing about okra is that it actually forms very tall spires, and it's not very leafy. So, it's actually a really nice thing that you could interplant around. As the okra gets taller, you
could put things underneath it like lettuce and the
okra will shade it out and provide you with
second harvest underneath. There are some like funny
old methods with okra where you actually beat
the side of the plant. It's called Okra Whooping, and that's supposed to
stimulate more growth. I don't know about that, but
it is a wonderful summer crop. And just be aware that as it gets older, these spines on the stock will
actually be very irritating on your skin and it produces
kind of a latex sap. So you wanna wear gloves, and you don't wanna rub up
against the plant too much. - Next up, we have a crop
that I absolutely love, but I've only grown once in my life. And it's not even
related to the crop here, but they share a name and that
would be the sweet potato. This of course, is a field of potatoes, and it's actually coming to
the end of its life soon. So, there's gonna be a
huge harvest coming up soon on the channel. But sweet potatoes are a crop
that are thought to be native to Central and South America. But there's evidence
that they were cultivated from about 1100 A.D onwards in Polynesia, and was brought to the
Americas from Polynesia. So, a really interesting crop. But, man, a sweet, heat loving
crop, if there ever was one! You got four months worth of warm season that it needs to grow. And I'm talking, it really loves the heat, 80 Fahrenheit and above. It really is fine growing
in that situation. But with sweet potatoes, not potatoes, what you need to do is make sure that soil is nice and loose. If you have the ability,
I might add a bit of sand into that mixture. That's really helped me in
my sweet potato cultivation. But what you want to do is
get them in relatively early in the season. Once that temp starts to ramp up upwards, keep them in the ground
for at least four months. You can let them continue to grow. And then when frost starts
to kill them off in the fall, you know the energy is
shot down into that tuber. You can claw them outta the ground, one of the most fun
harvesting experiences, and have these monster,
honking sweet potatoes that store quite well
throughout the season. Now, if you're growing in a container, which is the only way
I've ever grown them, 20 to 24 inch container. I really like a half wine barrel for them, then you can make your own custom mix and plant them with slips. Now you can buy those slips in or what you can do is
just take a sweet potato, stick some toothpicks in it, put the bottom half in the water, let the slips come out the
top and then snap them off, root those in water and
plant them in the ground. We have a whole video on it, but we'll do another one here soon 'cause it again, is one of
the most fun plants to grow. - Much like the name implies, summer squash is actually
a wonderful thing to grow during the summer when it
starts getting too hot. Over here, I have two of my
early squashes planted out, and they're really starting
to respond to this spring heat 'cause that's what they need. They need the heat to grow,
they need the heat to thrive. Now, squash has been grown
for over 8,000 years. At least in Mexico, it's
been traced back that far. And if you wanna grow
a squash all year round and harvest it even in the
hottest times of the year, you can try to get away
with the summer squash which is the Cucurbita Pepo. (Jacques chuckles) But then there's also
the Moschata varieties, which are like the things
like butternut squash, if harvested young, can actually be in like a summer squash. And those do really well in the heat. So, if you want plenty
of produce, actually, so much so that there's a
national giveaway a zucchini on somebody's porch day, then definitely try out
some summer squashes. But don't be stuck on the zucchini 'cause there's a lot of
great varieties out there. One of my personal favorite is the Dirani, which is more of like the Koosa style. So, give them a try and
you'll be happy to see that you'll have plenty of
food to eat all through summer. - Next up, one of my
favorite crops of all time, the versatility and the
variety of this crop, not only, but also the fact that it does really well in a hot, dry climate. And of course, that would
be the humble pepper, of which I've grown over a
hundred varieties in my lifetime. So, peppers are thoughts
who have originated in Central America. In fact, the Nahualt peoples
of Mexico were the first to cultivate them. All hail from one initial
species, Capsicum Annuum. Now, there's thousands of cultivars, and also different species like flexuosum or chinens, et cetera. But what you nearly need to know is that if you're in a hot
climate, zones 9, 10, 11 plus, you can plant peppers seeds
directly in the ground as soil temps get to
about 70 Fahrenheit or so. Now, if you're in a cold climate, of course, you wanna start those indoors about two months before your frost ends, and then get them in the ground then. But they're one of the more heat tolerant, solanaceous crops. Basically, you have your
tomatoes, your peppers and your eggplants all related,
all in the same family. And in that order is
how they like the heat. Tomatoes like it a little bit less. Peppers are in that middle ground, and then eggplants can
really handle the heat. But these guys are so, so versatile, sweets, hots, super hots, different colors, sizes, and varieties. The only thing I'll
say for protecting them through a really hot time of the year is you do wanna water them pretty deeply, and infrequently and throw
a bunch of mulch around them and then just sort of
let them get blasted. I mean, 80 Fahrenheit and above, they can handle pretty well as long as you've controlled
the moisture in the soil, and made sure that they have
just a little bit of fertility. Little care tip, we've
talked about this before here on the channel, is you don't have to do what's called topping your pepper. What you might do is, you
know, clip this top right here, let growth come out and
bush this pepper out. It's a technique, you can do it. If I was gonna do it, I'd do it on something perhaps like these, the Jimmy Nardello peppers
or maybe Shishito peppers, those smaller ones. But if I wasn't going to do
it, which I typically don't, that would be on my
bigger peppers like bells. They're only gonna give you
three, four, five per plant. Why slow that plant down? Now, if you are in a hot
climate, you can extend that season by overwintering your pepper, cutting it down by about two thirds or so, removing most of the foliage and just leaving it in the ground, and it will come back as
a perennial next year. So, peppers might even be the best heat tolerant crop you can grow. - If you want a truly heat tolerant bean, in fact, so heat tolerant
that it's primarily grown in the desert southwest, look no further than the Tepary bean. These tiny beans are
absolutely packed with flavor. They come in either bushing
or climbing varieties. And I grew them last year and it made the most delicious
bean broth I've ever had. Now, these can handle alkaline soils and sandy soils very well. In clay, it's a little bit trickier, which is what I have here. That's because they don't
like that much water. They're truly heat and drought tolerant. Now, if you're looking for
a more traditional bean, that does also work in the heat, then something like
Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean is a fantastic option. This is something that
can tolerate more heat and growing up on the pole means that you do save a lot of space, while getting a lot of beans,
even when it gets really hot. - Next up, we have sunflowers, absolutely my favorite flowers,
at least for the time being, partially because they do
what you're seeing here. I didn't plant these,
they're just coming back up because I had a honking mammoth sunflower in this area last year, and
as I let that seed head die, I think birds and just the
natural patterns of the wind kind of spread it around the garden, and it's just popping up. So, I have one in my onion bed, have one in my bed of alyssum here, and I could not be happier. But this is a North American native, cultivated by indigenous peoples
in New Mexico and Arizona. 3000 years BC 3000 BC, a very, very long time ago. And the cool thing about
this plant is you think of it as these huge, sort of, flower heads, and that's what a sunflower is. But in fact, it's not really true. You've got Jerusalem
artichokes or sunchokes, that is in the same family, edible tubers. So, more focusing on that
tuberous part of the plant, you can actually eat every
single part of a sunflower. I can eat this leaf, I
could cut this stem open and eat it almost like a celery. In fact, last year, Jacques and I ate an entire
immature sunflower head. We roasted it up on our
Epic Homesteading channel, which is really more the story of myself buying the property I'm in now, and how I've built it out. So, I encourage you to check that out, but it was absolutely
delicious, I have to say, and I'm not just making that up. But why are we talking about it? It is a heat tolerant, heat loving plant, growing up, so to speak in
an area that is quite hot and dry, Arizona, New Mexico. So, when you plant this, care wise, it's basically
a set and forget. As long as the roots are well established, it doesn't even require all too much water and you'll see it start to shoot up. In fact, like I said,
you'll get volunteers pop up the first year, you
start growing sunflower and letting those seeds spread around. So, for me, absolutely a must grow, if you're in a hot, dry climate. These crops are guaranteed
to work in a hot dry climate. - And we have a lot of them available @botanicalinterests.com. So, definitely go grab some. - And if you want anything else, shop.epicgardening.com
to deck your garden out with beds, tools, et cetera. And until next time, my friends, stay cool and keep on growing. (soft upbeat music)
