Many more days of this heat and ideas

 According to the weather it is 94 already and when I took Rocky for a walk and then checked the garden it was 90 in the shade. It is 80-82 inside. Ten degree difference for now, it climbs up as the sun goes overhead and then blasts our front wall for three hours. 

The garden is okay, good thing I watered yesterday, nothing has eaten the other plants in the south bed. Yet. The pepper is doing okay and I think the flowers are finally trying to set fruit. But with the heat, the only time there's a chance of pollinators is too early for them to go out and then it's too hot even for them. Yep, same with me.

It's a catch-22 that plants (most plants) need as much sun as possible to do well and yet, it's always too much of a good thing is bad. In this kind of heat an easily retractable sun shade would be perfect. I can imagine a raised bed arrangement with netting and support poles then the ability to deploy a sun screen during the hottest months.

 This first one is a great idea, though the beds need to be a bit taller for my liking. There are also 'hoop houses' that are curved supports going over the beds to throw row cover or netting on as another good idea. Most of the other ideas were primarily for keeping deer out of the garden so they had two or four inch mesh screen. Having 1/4" hardware cloth as a screen works wonders for that as well as keeping birds and butterflies out. Good and bad on that idea, need butterflies sometimes for pollinating. Oh notice how close the hose is to that square raised bed? 

In theory the beating sun is the least of problems for these gardens, only have to worry about excessive heat is in the West and Southwest. Or it used to be. Seems all over it's going to be a factor now.

That hoop house is an easy peasy build with just some 2 by 4s a good drill and pvc pipe. This can also be used as a seed house/greenhouse for starting plants early. Again, not my concern at this time but good to know for the future.Anyway, those are some ideas for raised beds and not even the good ones, topic for today and more ideas to come. 

I'm a great idea person, just not so good on following through.