22 Days of Temperatures above 90°F

Summer 2012 has proved to be a scorcher, but it is not stopping the vegetables or bees at Leafy Greens Farm. We are thankful for the well water and drip tape irrigation system we installed. We have been going to the farm every couple of days, watering for an hour or two and harvesting the hardy summer veggies. We found that kales and chards are the hardiest leafy greens around. Our other vegetables that seem to love the heat include the following: beans, zucchini, squash, okra, and cucumbers. We had to harvest all of our broccoli and cabbages because they started to flower and get burned by the sun.

One of my favorite things to watch at the farm is the zucchini and squash leaves come back to life after watering. In order to produce the zucchini and squash, the plant uses the water stored in the leaves to create the vegetable. In high heat, the plant's leaves become wilted and sad looking; however, they bounce back with a small amount of watering.

As for the bees, we were worried that the heat might make them swarm and disappear to a cooler place. Inside the bee hive, the temperature is normally higher than the outdoor temperature due to all of the busy activity going on inside. During the summer it is essential to have a water source for the bees nearby so that they can take it into the hive and help the hive cool down. We have two buckets of water near the hive. We also placed the hives under a shade tree for added protection from the scorching sun.