I am having trouble finding information on this. I do container and hydroponic vegetable gardening. I am now in south/central Texas and it gets hot! Back yard has large areas of rock beds and a large brick patio. Concerned about my vining plants (cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, other melons, etc). Is it okay for the plant if the vines are lying on a hot surface like that instead of normal ground? Maybe as long as they remain appropriately watered they will not dry up or burn? Thanks so much!
Vines on hot bricks/gravel
- Thread starter Steve A
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- Joined
- Feb 2, 2014
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- Location
- La Porte Texas
- Hardiness Zone
- 8b
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I probably live close to you. I have an old crushed rock garden. When fruit is set I place something under the fruit such as an old piece of styrofoam or a piece of wood and I don't worry about the vines and so far nothing bad has happened. I know it gets really hot here, 2 years it reached 109. The rock gets hot but have you ever taken the temperature of black soil 4 inches deep. One year I measured soil temp with mulch and without. At +/- 100F the soil at 4 inches deep was 165F and the mulched was 115F. So I know that soil absorbs heat but I have no way I can think of to measure the temp of the rocks. Just feeling the rocks and feeling the soil, it seems to me that the soil is hotter. Vining plants, with all of their leaves, seems to keep the surface they are on cooler. I just keep the bottoms of the fruit protected because the rocks are a little sharp and very uneven and they might damage the skin, especially on a 25lb melon. If it were cement the vines were on, I would have to say that cement would absorb heat as the soil does and the plants would cook. I think the difference is that cement is smooth and rocks are not so rocks would reflect the sun and heat into different directions. Anyway, that is my opinion but I am just a poor old uneducated country boy, so what do I really know?