I live in a place where the hotter it is inland, the more fog is pulled from the ocean, so I can’t share photos of plants resiliently living or dying in the face of all the heat I know so many of you are experiencing.
How is your garden doing? Any difference in the GTS mixes vs commercial seeds?
We had an extremely wet and cool spring which abruptly ended last week. One hot and very humid week later and we are now hot and dry with cracks in the ground.
The beans are fried, the corn is crispy, there are some squash plants surviving in the shade.
I have one watermelon plant growing. And lots of okra really taking off.
Some potted plants got hit pretty hard. This small fig tree is going to drop all its leaves but it will survive, has healthy buds getting ready to pop.
Here in western Illinois zone 6a, we had a decently wet spring and then no significant rain since late May. So far, plants that had a chance to get their roots established when there was moisture in the ground are doing fine. Plants that were planted after the rains ended have died unless heavily watered. We’ve been getting heat along with very dry winds that suck all the moisture out of everything.
If i had a pickup truck I would mulch my garden heavily but instead i plant very densely, covering the ground with plants as much as i can. The soil stays moist much longer after watering, that way.
My gardening goal is to plant what i can in the fall, and the rest in very early spring when the ground is wet. It’s just too expensive to use municipal water here. I am using it this year but next year i think I’m going rain-fed or bust.
I’m incorporating swales and sunken areas in my garden to capture incoming water when it does rain. On those rare occasions when i can borrow a pickup truck i scour the streets for bags of leaves and yard waste at the curb, and this material goes into the sunken areas to act as a sponge to hold water.
In other words, even though rain is absent now, I’m making preparations to capture it when it does come. I highly recommend Brad Lancaster’s book “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond.” This book changed the way i think about water and my relationship with the landscape.
I’m also using thick stands of sunflowers to block the wind a bit. That’s coming from the west, in my garden, so lots of sunflowers on the west edge of my garden.
No photos, but I made the mistake in my Bulgarian garden of chop-and-dropping the past knee-high weeds that had grown since my last visit. And by the following evening, all the leaves on my hazelnut seedlings that had been tucked away in the weeds had scorched and fallen. They obviously needed the shade and the extra humidity provided by the weed cover. The garlic and shallots looked quite fried, too. I do need to stop the weeds going to seed, they’re those nasty grasses with the spear-like seeds. But I’ll be sure to cut them off taller next time.
The drying winds came a couple days ago western Illinois and burnt some of my sunflower and zinnia seedlings.
And my turnips have been looking terrible this year. There are bunch that are still harvestable though. Just have been too busy to do it yet.
Here, equivalent of your zone 6a/b, spring has come a month earlier, followed by heat and drought. I did not have a chance to sow GTS seeds, but I did use a lot of seeds from European exchange, and thanks to that I had some seeds that others received from the US through various channels.
Results differ enormously and no common pattern can be found here except one - in case of tomatoes, peppers and dwarf beans my own seeds outperform all other so far. But, it is way too early to cheer, we will see what the harvest will be. In case of tomatoes for instance, late blight is always the most imortant factor here, and it comes in July…
In case of other veggies, what was growing the best before the heat wave, suffered the most during drought. The best example are favas - initially those from Sweden and Finland were growing the best, but now they are almost over due to heat, with very small yield if at all.
Some of dwarf beans from European exchange did not germinate at all, but nearly all corn has germinated excellent.
Runner beans from all sources did fine, no visible difference so far.
Comparing to the commercial seeds, the biggest disappointment this year were the seeds from a renowned EU seller, bought 2-3 years ago, and totally useless this year (tomatoes and hot peppers). In the same time, I have sown seeds of the Tiny Tim tomato variety that I have collected every year from 2013 to 2023, and ALL have germinated (50-100%).
Commercial radish varieties outperformed my own - my started to flower immediately during heat wave, same for lettuce.
Zucchinies and squashes produced beautiful seedlings from majority of seeds, but lack of rain limits their growth now. I do emergency watering once a week, otherwise they would have been already dead.
The garden lives only thanks to heavy mulching and shade of trees that surround it. In the same time, in other parts of the country, they suffer from floods and hailstorms. Go figure.
I also planted a few fava beans. Most died already, the few left are struggling to flower. If they set seed i will save it. I think i might try fall planting and see what comes up in the early spring. I have a few tepary beans that I’m planning to plant soon. Maybe they will do better.
In my place fall planting does not work, even under the fleece. Favas are good for the majority of winter, then a few nights of hard frost kill them entirely.
I’m in north-central Florida, zone 9a/b. Daily summer temps are over 90 degrees F, winter temps are generally above freezing, and rain, while torrential when it arrives, is infrequent.
GTS Not Just Cowpeas: Doing really well despite the sun and heat; some show what I think is sunburn. They’re also suffering a bit from trapped moisture beneath their canopy. But, they are putting out lots of flowers and setting plenty of pods. I’m excited, even despite the few already sacrificed to the shield bug overlords.
GTS watermelon from the Grab Bag: This thing is happy! It’s my first time with watermelon. There aren’t any others flowering currently so it must be selfing, but still, I’ll take it. The fruit gets bigger by the day (other babies are developing) and the vine is sprawling across 30 feet of bed space. Filled in blue dot is where the roots are.
Dead cowpea, I think from the Grab Bag, but it still produced a pod! Got two seeds from it.
GTS Squash (Moschata and Pepo) and Muskmelon, along with my assorted vine mix: They were suffering a great deal until I dropped the drought tolerance selection pressure (everything garden-wide was dying…). Now some of them are bouncing back, hopefully going to set flowers soon. I planted Maxima as well, but none of them made it.
GTS Sweet Corn: I don’t expect cobs, but I’m satisfied with this trial run. I learned that, like the vines, the corn can stand the heat as long as it gets daily water. They were attacked by what I think was corn maggots or something…As sad as they look, they’re still tons better than last year’s trial run. And they’re still green, which is a great surprise. On the largest stalk, you can see an Eastern lubber grasshopper; supposedly they decimate gardens here according to online groups, but there are plenty in my garden yet I’ve never seen any direct damage from them. I’m more worried about the shield bugs.
Grex tomato seedling and store onions: I started many crop seedlings before figuring out that FL seasons are not northern seasons, where I most remember my parents’ gardening habits. Neither tomatoes nor onions are in season here. But, the tomato babies seem to be doing alright, we’ll see if they grow to set flowers. My favorites are the potato-leaf kinds, as I’ve never grown them before. The onions are all from bought bulbs, as a trial run; the large established ones are taking the heat very well, and have been growing for probably a year now. I’ll start onions from seed in the fall, which is the recommended planting time for them here.
GTS Radish and Kale+: The one radish grew and bolted quickly after I began watering regularly. Other radish and kale are growing slowly, and have not yet bolted. These, too, were planted as a trial run out of season.
F1 cowpea and happy purslane: This cowpea’s from the minimal seed I produced last year; the plant is growing vigorously, but has only set one pod and is no longer flowering. The purslane was purchased along with another two varieties, all from the discount rack; I’m happily surprised at how much they’re thriving in the heat and setting gorgeous flowers. I’ve already collected seed, and will continue to do so; I’ve decided I would like to breed them for more vigor and diverse flower colors. One of the other purslanes has white with pink stripes flowers.
Grex basil seedlings: A trial run. They germinated and are growing strongly in the heat, and have not succumbed to snails.
The cracks have started!
No rain and high temperatures. Okra is still growing but I forgot to take pictures.
Many a time I have observed that weeding produces negative effects such as rapidly drying out the ground in my garden. There are still a few plants that are allelopathic that i pull (a stinky mint called Creeping Charlie for example) but mostly I just let them be.
Yes. I did chop and drop, so the ground wasn’t left bare, but the remaining plants lost the shade and humidity the tall weeds gave them and got way more sun exposure in scorching hot weather. A mistake. It’s difficult with a garden I can only visit irregularly.
Last year I had dahlias growing with sunflowers. The sunflowers seemed to be shading the dahlias quite a bit, so i cut the lower leaves off the sunflowers. The dahlias, which had been nicely erect, immediately flopped over and remained prostrate for the rest of the season. It seemed that it would have been better for me to not have interfered.
Now I do some weeding and cultivating when I plant, and then I pretty much leave be. There might be some climates where weeds grow much more rampantly, though.
Those cracks present an opportunity to drop-in seeds…
My garden is weed heaven, because I’m just not there to gently manage the chaos enough. Many of the more useful weeds I let be, but some of it has to be cut back – the bindweed that will overrun everything, and a grass with copious horrible spear-like awns that bury themselves in human and animal flesh. The bindweed I suspect I will need to learn to coexist with, but I’d really love to eradicate this particular grass. Unfortunately both years since buying the land things have stopped me being there to mow it back before it sets seed.
They would sprout in China! 
These cracks go down at least 4 inches, and by the end of summer it could easily be 1+ feet. I like to sprinkle a little compost in if they are in the garden.
A few of my turnips started going to seed. An employee of the holding company that “manages” the adjacent property just sprayed the bed with herbicide. I was planning to eat turnips, but now i guess i will be limited to collecting seed, if any manages to mature. 
Next time around, I guess that i will border my entire garden with a thick barrier of sunflowers (Nahuatl name “chimalxochitl.” Principal English Translation:
shield-flower, a sunflower; seems to have war associations.)
That spot gets the best sun, though. I really wanted that sunny spot! I’m not even sure I want to try growing food in that spot again. I don’t know what they sprayed on it or how long it will persist or how toxic it really is. In the rural Midwest all you hear about herbicide is that it’s “perfectly safe when used as directed.” But even within that optimistic belief, there are many herbicide products sold for “landscape use” that are NOT to be used on garden vegetable plots, according to the instruction label.
This is one of the realities of being poor and renting. You’re often at the mercy of LLC’s that use chemical warfare to “manage” the landscape. Conversations after the fact can’t undo damage already done. If you can even figure out who to talk to about it. It’s upsetting.
I’m so sorry you had that. The sunflowers sound an excellent idea. I am almost certain my neighbour sprayed along our fence line. 
I’m really sorry about this too. It’s one reason I think people should keep getting out of the cities and living in small communities to grow our own food non-violently. What your neighbors do matters.
Hope you find a solution quickly and simply
