The Top 15 Vegetables to Grow in the Heat
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Chinese Eggplant right after an abundant harvest
Last week in our newsletter we touched on some of my favorite landscape plants that can thrive in the Texas heat but I’m sure you’re wondering what vegetables even stand a chance when the temps exceed 90°!
In full transparency, I’ve had years where the summer garden has been my most challenging; however, these moments have been an invaluable learning experience. I encourage you to power through and discover which vegetables produce for you this summer!
Keep reading to see our top 15 vegetables that survive and thrive grow in our Central Texas summers.
SWEET POTATOES
Sweet potatoes are very easy to grow in the Central Texas summers. I like to start my slips in the winter months, indoors (how-to article coming in time for Fall). Once planted they produce the most beautiful vines with purple trumpet flowers. I usually don’t have to do much other than provide regular watering and then harvest in October or November when the weather cools and the vines start to yellow and die back. Our most successful harvest was 40 pounds from about 16 slips.
COWPEAS
I’ve personally never grown cow peas, aka southern peas, but hear from garden friends that they are easy to grow. Cowpeas can be eaten one of three ways; the whole pod of cowpeas can be eaten when harvested young or you can shell them and eat the peas when they are more mature. If you choose to harvest and let them dry you can cook them later like dried beans. An example of a dried pea would be the black-eyed pea.
Image courtesy of OutsidePride.com
YARD LONG BEANS
Also in the cowpea family, Yard Longs are grown for their long green or purple pods and have a sweet, nutty flavor. In the high Texas heat, Yard Long Beans grown on a teepee are the perfect garden companion to shade more sun-sensitive plants, such as radish and other bush varieties of beans.
Image courtesy of AmazingSeeds.com
hot peppers
Growing peppers can make you feel like a champion in the garden! Many varieties are high producers from spring into late summer/fall in the Texas Hill Country.
Green Beans
Green beans are some of the most popular vegetables to grow in a Texas garden, because they are a less fussy plant to tend. Beans come in bush varieties for a quick harvest or pole varieties for an extended, seasonal harvest. Bush beans grow compact and produce all at once. Staggering their planting will give you a higher yield. Pole beans require trellising for space and production and resist most garden diseases. Want a more in-depth guide for growing beans!? Click here..
Okra
Okra is, by far, my favorite summer vegetable to grow other than cucumbers! This really is the plant that takes care of itself and is very adaptable to the summer surprises that the heat can bring. One word of advice- harvest daily and harvest often for production! If you blink, you can miss your harvest window. The larger the pods the more fibrous and inedible it can become. I generally like to harvest pods that are the size of the length of my thumb. When I have okra in the garden I visit the garden AT LEAST twice a day.
Summer Squash
Another favorite vegetable of mine to grow but one of the more challenging here in Central Texas because of the pesky vine borers. 2 tips for successfully growing squash is to use row covers and hand pollinate. If you want to be more hands off in your garden, this sadly might not be the veg for you. To set myself up for success, I typically wait until June or July to grow zucchini and squash. It could be a wives tale, but the vine borers seem less active during these months. Experiment and see what works for you.
Sunflowers
Not a vegetable, per say, but a great source of nutrients for pollinators and an abundant food source for birds. If you want to drop seeds and walk away with no growing effort, this is the plant for you! Bring some color into your life with sunflowers.
Eggplant
A member of the nightshade family and cousin to the potato, this fruit has some really cool varieties. My absolute favorite varieties are in the asian family and produce long, skinny crops; less bitter and infused with a buttery goodness. You can read more here about growing organic eggplant from seed.
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Amaranth
Missing salad during the hot months? You can eat the leaves of young amaranth plants and later enjoy the beautiful flowers. Be cautious about letting go to full seed- once it drops you will have an amaranth jungle.
malabar Spinach
Another great way to get in your greens during the summer is to grow a vining vegetable called malabar spinach. It is not a member of the spinach family but the tropical vining Basellacea vegetable family. Provide trellis support for its vining foliage. This plant welcomes temps over 90° so it’s a rockstar in the summer Texas elements. But if you are finding yourself missing crisp cool lettuce in the intense heat of the summer, here is a quick guide from Little Green Yard talking about how she grows lettuce hydroponically on her balcony.
cucumbers
My husband hates cucumbers! Booooooo…. But it does not stop me from growing this classic veg in the garden. Provide trellis support to encourage good airflow and to keep disease and pests at bay. Cucumbers come in all sizes and varieties and make the most wonderful, nutrient dense snack on those hot summer days.
Corn
Personally, I don’t grow corn that often but know it's a favorite in hot Texas gardens or plots. It’s fairly easy to grow and I recommend growing the sweet kernel varieties because they are more tender and tasty. Corn requires a fair amount of water and you need to beware of worms.
Melons
Definitely my kids favorite thing to grow! I actually don’t grow our melons IN the garden but on a small terraced area in our backyard. Like squash, you do have to watch for vine borers, but the reward is worth the fuss. We can easily harvest 200lbs of melons off 3 vines. Sugar baby is a Holt house staple.
Marketmore 76, Minime, and Picolino Cucumbers Growing on the Vine
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