Growing in the Phoenix heat of summer

[Bob M]

Is there any interest in a discussion thread of growing tomatoes in the hot months in Phoenix as I do yearly? I've searched several terms and found nothing.

My starts went into the ground on January 1 and several plants are now over 6' tall and will likely be able to produce until December. Would be interesting to share / discuss issues with growers facing similar obstacles.

Growing in 115f weather gets challenging.

[PlainJane]

I’m in N. Florida, so hot and humid instead of hot and dry, but I’d be interested in hearing about others experiences with heat.

[slugworth]

There is actually a variety called phoenix from bonnie plants.
I couldn't find any plants locally this year.
They also have heatmaster,for hot humid areas.
It was 88 degrees F today even here.

[Bob M]

We are already hitting the low hundreds with mostly single digit humidity for another month or so. I've two types of tomatoes that do very well here all summer and will over winter outside with care. A lot of challenges coming very soon. This year I've also planted out some new varieties that I think might work well into the hot months. So far they are still setting fruit.

[Shule]

I'm not from Phoenix, but I'm interested in reading the discussion.

[Rockoe10]

As am I. And I'm curious how the possibility of Winter growing into Spring works. I would imagine your Winter is like my Spring

[slugworth]

I had phoenix plants last year but they got wiped out in the aug 4th hurricane before they reached my mouth.
They survived the breaking wind, but got wiped out by the salt spray off long island sound.
I wasn't able to save any seed.

[Bob M]

I was not aware of the Phoenix variety so it peaked my interest and I searched for them. Rat's that they are determinate. I may try them this fall / winter but since our growing season is so long I try to only grow indeterminate varieties.

[slugworth]

Sometimes the determinates fool you.
I never grew them until a few years ago when some actually turned out to be semi-determinate.
They had tomatoes until frost here.
Phoenix you can clone to get extra mileage out of them.
Take cuttings from the initial plants to have plants for later when plants aren't normally available.
Suckers make good cloning materiel if you let them grow 6 or 8 inches long.
Suckers will produce when cloned.

[MissS]

Grand Marshall F1 is supposed to be able to set fruit in high temperatures. This one is also a determinate tomato.

[ponyexpress]

My starts went into the ground on January 1 and several plants are now over 6' tall and will likely be able to produce until December. Would be interesting to share / discuss issues with growers facing similar obstacles.

Growing in 115f weather gets challenging.

So what do you do when it's summer? Use shade cloth? Do you have a micro drip irrigation system?

I'm not from Phoenix, but I'm interested in reading the discussion.

Same here but as my youngest daughter is entering college, I'm starting to think more about early retirement. AZ would be a nice place for a snowbird.

[mama_lor]

Shade cloth should help a lot. Not much one can do about the night temperatures, but certainly protecting them from scorching sun will help.

[Bob M]

My primary spot for tomatoes is partially covered by our roof and faces east so they get full sun from sun up until 12;30 when things really heat up. I've only grown cherry varieties there until this year and the cherries often went over the roof and produced massive amounts that we couldn't possibly use all of.

This year I tried Cherokee Purple and (Burpee) Bodacious Hybrid in the same location and while the CP has struggled with BER the Bodacious has excelled in production, non cracking and growth. Those plants are now to the roof line and being trained back to a lower vine. They are still blooming and setting fruit in our plus 100 temps now. I no longer see the seeds on their website so glad I picked up a couple of packs while I could.

So the two varieties that are super hardy here thus far are the Bodacious Hybrid and the Yellow Pear. The Pears are almost a nuisance weed here since they are strong volunteer plants coming up all over the yard, even my neighbors get them coming up.

[MissS]

[mention]Bob M[/mention] under the eves of the house was a great place for me to grow tomatoes before I moved. The plants got the light reflected off of the building and were also protected from the rain which significantly cut down on disease pressure.