A few students from Best Ever Fall Vegetable Garden (who also get an A+ for successfully starting fall veggies from seed indoors!) expressed concerns about putting fall vegetable transplants into the garden in this heat.

Yes, the weather of late is just miserable. I spent all day outside on Sunday potting up broccoli, cauliflower, and napa cabbage seedlings. Afterward, I was so wiped out that I could barely keep my eyes open at the dinner table.

Despite the heat, it’s important to adhere to the fall planting schedule.

Brassica seedlings (started indoors between late July and mid-August) need to be transplanted as soon as they have been fully hardened off. (This process is explained in BEFG.)

This is because cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower must put on a lot of size in order to produce large heads. Small plant size at head formation is one of the most common reasons these veggies fail for home gardeners.

We also want all of this growth to occur before regular hard freezes set in. Brassicas are tolerant of some frost depending on variety, but even if a frost doesn’t kill the plant entirely, cold-damaged plants are unlikely to deliver the harvest you were expecting.

Direct sowing of seeds like radishes, beets, carrots, turnips, kale, and lettuce also shouldn’t be delayed by the heat. Keep seedbeds moist, and plan for succession sowing, a.k.a. planting in intervals). Not only does succession sowing extend the harvest (no need to eat 40 heads of lettuce in a single week) it also provides insurance in case any of the first-round seedlings fail. There are interval planting charts inside the BEFG class.

If you’re still worried, you can cover seedlings with shade cloth (supported by hoops or posts). Just remember to water seedbeds and young seedlings daily.

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