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Think nothing grows during extreme summer heat? Think again. In this video, we'll explore 12 resilient crops that thrive in hot, dry conditions and continue producing when many common vegetables struggle.
These heat-tolerant crops have been grown for generations in warm climates around the world, yet many receive far less attention than mainstream garden favorites. Whether you're dealing with scorching summers, drought, or simply want a more resilient garden, these plants are worth considering.
In this video, you'll learn:
12 crops that thrive in extreme heat
Which plants are best for drought-prone gardens
Tips for growing food during hot summers
How to improve harvests with heat-tolerant varieties
Why these crops deserve more attention
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced gardener, these heat-loving crops can help you harvest more food even in challenging weather.
🌱 Don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and turn on notifications for more gardening tips, growing guides, and self-sufficiency ideas.
#Gardening #HeatTolerantPlants #VegetableGarden #DroughtResistant #GrowYourOwnFood #Home
Think nothing grows during extreme summer heat? Think again. In this video, we'll explore 12 resilient crops that thrive in hot, dry conditions and continue producing when many common vegetables struggle.
These heat-tolerant crops have been grown for generations in warm climates around the world, yet many receive far less attention than mainstream garden favorites. Whether you're dealing with scorching summers, drought, or simply want a more resilient garden, these plants are worth considering.
In this video, you'll learn:
12 crops that thrive in extreme heat
Which plants are best for drought-prone gardens
Tips for growing food during hot summers
How to improve harvests with heat-tolerant varieties
Why these crops deserve more attention
Whether you're a beginner or an experienced gardener, these heat-loving crops can help you harvest more food even in challenging weather.
🌱 Don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and turn on notifications for more gardening tips, growing guides, and self-sufficiency ideas.
#Gardening #HeatTolerantPlants #VegetableGarden #DroughtResistant #GrowYourOwnFood #Home
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Folks think a dry summer is the end of a garden.
00:03The rain quits, the heat comes down like a hammer,
00:06the ground cracks open, and everything wilts and burns and gives up,
00:11and the gardener stands there helpless, watching his work die for want of water.
00:16But it need not be so, and here is a thing worth knowing.
00:20There are crops, old crops, that were feeding whole peoples
00:25in the driest, hottest corners of this earth for thousands of years.
00:30Crops that do not merely survive a drought, but hardly seem to mind it,
00:34that go right on bearing when the thirsty, modern vegetables
00:38have long since curled up and quit.
00:41Most of us have never heard of them,
00:43because the big farms turned their backs on them long ago
00:46in favor of a few thirsty crops that must be watered and watered.
00:52So today I want to tell you about 12 of these tough, old drought crops,
00:57and I will be honest with you, as always, about which of them I grow myself in my own ground,
01:02and which are the treasures of far hotter, drier lands than mine that I only know of and admire.
01:10My name is Elias Yoder, and I farm here in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania,
01:16and I will say plainly at the start, my country is not a desert.
01:21We get our rains and our cold winters here,
01:24and some of these crops are children of the burning sand,
01:27and would be strangers in my ground, as I am a stranger to theirs.
01:32So I will not stand here and pretend to a knowledge I do not have.
01:37I will tell you true, what I grow and what I do not,
01:40for that honesty is the whole of what this channel is worth.
01:44I remember a hard, dry summer when I was young, the worst I have seen,
01:49when the corn stood curled and gray in the fields,
01:53and the well ran low, and every gardener I knew
01:56was hauling water by the bucket to keep things alive.
02:00And my grandfather, who had grown a patch of that red amaranth
02:04from seed his own grandfather kept,
02:06stood at the edge of it one evening,
02:08and it was near the only green thing still standing,
02:12tall and unbothered, in the whole garden,
02:15drinking from somewhere deep down that the drought had not reached.
02:20He looked at it a long while, and he said,
02:23The old plants know how to wait.
02:25They were bred in harder country than this.
02:28I have never forgotten it, nor stopped growing that amaranth since.
02:33Before I go on, I will say this once and then leave it be.
02:38I gathered the whole of it,
02:39all these old ways of growing your own food, into a book.
02:44You can find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:48The book is the long version.
02:50If you want it, it is there.
02:52I will not mention it again.
02:54Now, here is the plain truth
02:56of why these crops endure the dry without any fancy talk.
03:01The Lord gave each of these plants
03:04its own way of bearing the heat and the drought,
03:07and if you look, you can see the ways plainly.
03:10Most of them drive their roots down deep,
03:13far deeper than a common vegetable,
03:15six and eight feet and more,
03:18down to where the moisture hides
03:19long after the top of the ground has baked dry,
03:23so they drink from a well the other plants cannot reach.
03:27Many have a waxy skin on their leaves
03:30that holds the moisture in,
03:32or leaves that roll up tight in the worst heat of the day
03:35to shrink from the sun,
03:37or that drop away entirely in a hard drought
03:40and grow back when the rains return.
03:43And a good many simply grow fast and hard,
03:47racing from seed to harvest
03:49before the dry season can catch them.
03:52Deep roots, thrifty leaves, and quick growing.
03:55Those are the plain gifts these plants carry,
03:59and that is why they endure where others fail.
04:02Let me start with the ones I grow myself,
04:05right here in my own beds,
04:07for those I can speak of with my own hands' knowledge.
04:10The first is amaranth,
04:12and this is a wonderful plant,
04:15an ancient grain that fed old civilizations
04:18far to the south of here,
04:20and it grows beautifully for me.
04:22It shoots up tall with brilliant red and gold plumes,
04:26handsome enough for a flower bed,
04:28and it gives you two foods in one,
04:31for the young leaves cook up like a fine spinach,
04:34and the plumes fill with thousands of tiny grains
04:37you can cook like a porridge or grind for flour.
04:41And it laughs at heat and drought,
04:43wanting little water,
04:45and in fact too much water and rich feeding
04:47just makes it run to leaf instead of grain.
04:52Scatter the tiny seed thinly on warm soil,
04:56thin the seedlings apart,
04:57and stand back.
04:59It is one of the most generous,
05:01forgiving, drought-hardy things I grow.
05:04When the plumes are full and heavy in the late summer,
05:08and the grain shakes free easy
05:10when you rub a head between your hands,
05:12you cut the heads,
05:14dry them well,
05:15and thresh the grain out
05:17by rubbing or by treading them in a sack.
05:20A single good plant
05:22will give you a cupful of grain and more,
05:24and a small patch,
05:26a fine store of it for the winter.
05:29The second is sorghum,
05:31which grows well in my country
05:33and deserves far more love than it gets,
05:36for most folks here
05:37only know it as feed-for-stock
05:39or the stuff of broom-making,
05:41and never think to eat it.
05:44But it is a fine grain,
05:46tall as corn or taller,
05:48and it drinks far less water than corn does
05:51to give you as much.
05:53Its leaves wear that waxy coat
05:56and roll up in the worst heat
05:58to save themselves,
05:59and its roots run deep.
06:02You can grind the grain for a flower,
06:05or cook it whole,
06:06or, in the sweet kinds,
06:08press a syrup from the very stalks.
06:11Plant it like corn in the warm soil,
06:14and it will stand through a dry spell
06:16that leaves your corn gasping.
06:20The third is the cow pea,
06:23which many know as the black-eyed pea,
06:25and this is one of the toughest,
06:27most heat-loving beans there is.
06:30Where a common bean drops its flowers
06:32and quits in a scorching spell,
06:35the cow pea only gets happier,
06:37for it truly loves the heat,
06:40and it sends a deep taproot down
06:42after the hidden water.
06:44It wants a lean soil,
06:46not a rich one,
06:47and it feeds your ground as it grows,
06:50fixing goodness into the soil
06:52the way all the peas and beans do,
06:55leaving it richer than it found it.
06:58You eat the peas fresh and green,
07:01or dried for the winter,
07:03and the young leaves too are good greens.
07:05A fine, generous, drought-proof bean,
07:09and one I am glad to grow.
07:13And the fourth of my own is millet,
07:15the pearl millet,
07:16an ancient grain of the hot, dry lands of Africa
07:20that will nonetheless grow from me
07:22in a warm summer, quick and willing.
07:25It stands tall and slender
07:28with a long seed head
07:30packed with small, round grains,
07:32and it asks less water
07:34than near any grain there is.
07:36And it comes ready fast
07:38in a couple of months,
07:40so even a short season suits it.
07:43The grain cooks like rice,
07:45or grinds to flour,
07:47or even pops like a little corn.
07:49A hardy, thrifty, quick grain
07:52worth a corner of any warm garden.
07:56Now let me turn to the others,
07:59the eight I do not grow,
08:00the crops of the true deserts
08:03and the hot tropics
08:04far from my cold country,
08:06and here I will be honest
08:08and speak of them
08:09as things I know of and honor,
08:12not things I can teach you
08:13from my own hand.
08:15If you live in a hot, dry land,
08:18these may be your very best friends,
08:20and you should seek out someone
08:22who grows them where you are,
08:24but I will not pretend they are mine.
08:27There is the tepery bean
08:29of the Sonoran Desert,
08:31perhaps the most drought-hardy bean
08:33on the whole earth,
08:35that has fed the desert peoples there
08:37for thousands of years
08:38on almost no rain at all,
08:41its roots reaching down
08:43six feet and better after water.
08:45There is phonio,
08:48a tiny, quick grain of West Africa,
08:51called the grain that feeds the desert,
08:53that races from seed to harvest
08:56in six or eight weeks
08:57on the barest rainfall,
08:59a marvel of a thing.
09:02There is the Bambara groundnut,
09:05another African treasure,
09:06a pea that ripens its pods underground
09:09like a peanut,
09:10tough and nourishing
09:12in the poorest, sandy ground.
09:15There is cassava,
09:16a great tropical root
09:18that feeds hundreds of millions
09:20in the warm lands,
09:22drought-hardy and willing in poor soil,
09:25giving huge, starchy roots
09:27off a single planting,
09:28though I must pass along
09:30the honest and important warning
09:32that its roots carry something
09:34that must be cooked out of them,
09:36boiled thoroughly,
09:38before they are safe to eat,
09:39and never eaten raw.
09:41There is the pigeon pea,
09:43a woody pea bush of India
09:45and the tropics
09:46that lives and bears for years
09:48once planted,
09:49deep-rooted and drought-proof.
09:51There is moringa,
09:53called the miracle tree
09:54in the hot countries,
09:55whose leaves are among
09:56the most nourishing on earth,
09:58and which thrives in heat
10:00that would kill a garden,
10:01growing back even from its roots
10:03after a drought.
10:05There is the chiltepin,
10:06the tiny, wild pepper of the desert,
10:09the grandfather of all our chili peppers,
10:12a small, woody bush
10:14that bears its fierce little peppers
10:16for years in the burning sun
10:18on almost no water.
10:21And there is the tindora,
10:22the ivy gourd,
10:24a vigorous vine of India
10:26and the hot east
10:27that bears its little cucumber-like fruits
10:30the year round
10:31in a frost-free heat.
10:33Eight wonders,
10:35every one of the world's
10:36dry and burning places,
10:39and every one a thing I honor,
10:41and none a thing I grow.
10:44If they are suited to your country,
10:46learn them from those
10:47who know them there.
10:49Now let me give you one thing
10:50that helps any of these
10:52in any dry garden,
10:54mine or the deserts,
10:55and it is an old, old trick.
10:58Work some charcoal into your soil.
11:01Plain charcoal,
11:02the black char left from burnt wood,
11:05crushed up and dug into your beds.
11:08The old peoples of the Amazon
11:10did this thousands of years ago
11:12and made a black soil so rich
11:15it is fertile yet today.
11:17Here is why it works.
11:19That charcoal is full of tiny holes,
11:22like a sponge,
11:23and it soaks up water
11:24when the rain comes
11:25and holds it there in the ground,
11:28letting it back out slow to the roots
11:30through the dry days after.
11:32So your soil stays moist
11:34far longer between waterings.
11:37It holds the goodness in the soil too,
11:39and gives a home to all the tiny,
11:42helpful life in the ground.
11:44A little crushed charcoal
11:46worked into your beds
11:47is like burying a hundred little water jugs
11:50for your plants to sip from
11:52through the drought.
11:53It lasts for years,
11:55near forever,
11:56once it is in.
11:57That one old trick
11:59will help every crop I have named
12:01endure the dry.
12:03Let me say a plain word
12:05about why these fine old crops
12:07were forgotten
12:07and who gained by the forgetting.
12:10And it is no dark scheme.
12:12It is only this.
12:14The big farms
12:15and the big sellers
12:16found it simplest
12:18to grow a few crops,
12:20the same few everywhere,
12:22corn and wheat
12:23and rice and the rest,
12:25and to pour water on them
12:27to make them yield.
12:29There was money and ease
12:30in the sameness of it,
12:32in everyone growing
12:33and buying the same handful
12:35of thirsty things.
12:37And so these hardy old drought crops
12:40that ask no irrigation
12:42and fit no big machine
12:44and travel no great distance to market
12:47quietly fell out of use,
12:49not banned,
12:50not hidden,
12:52just left behind
12:53because there was no big trade in them.
12:56The knowing of them
12:57stayed alive
12:58only among the old peoples
12:59who never stopped growing them
13:01in the hard, dry places.
13:04It is not that anyone
13:05conspired to bury these crops.
13:07It is only that the money
13:09ran toward the few thirsty crops
13:11a man must buy again and again,
13:14and away from the tough old ones
13:16a body could grow himself on nothing,
13:19and it always has.
13:21So there is the whole of it,
13:23twelve tough old crops
13:25of the dry places.
13:27Four I grow in my own
13:28cold northern ground
13:30and can vouch for
13:31with my own hands,
13:33the amaranth
13:34and the sorghum
13:35and the cow-pea
13:36and the millet,
13:37and I would tell any gardener
13:39in a hot dry spell
13:40to try those.
13:41And eight more,
13:43the tepery bean
13:44and phonio
13:45and bambara groundnut,
13:47the cassava
13:48and pigeon-pea
13:50and moringa,
13:51the chiltepin
13:52and the tindora,
13:54treasures every one
13:55of the world's deserts
13:56and hot lands,
13:58which I honor
13:59and name for you
14:00but will not pretend
14:01to grow.
14:02And under all of them
14:04that old charcoal
14:05in the soil
14:06to hold
14:07what little water comes.
14:09Learn the ones
14:09that suit your country,
14:11and a dry summer
14:12need never be the end
14:14of your garden again.
14:15Tell me down in the comments
14:17what county you garden in
14:19and how dry
14:20your summers run,
14:21and whether you have grown
14:22any of these tough
14:23old crops,
14:25the amaranth
14:26or the sorghum
14:26or the cow-pea especially,
14:28for I would dearly like
14:30to know
14:30how they did for you.
14:32And if you garden
14:33in a hot dry land
14:34and grow one
14:35of the desert crops
14:36I could only speak of
14:37from afar,
14:38then you know
14:39more of it than I do,
14:40so please,
14:41put your knowledge
14:42down there
14:43for the rest of us,
14:44for that is just
14:45the sort of thing
14:46this whole channel
14:47is for.
14:48Next time out here
14:49I want to show you
14:50how to build
14:51a proper compost pile
14:52the old way,
14:54layer upon layer,
14:55for good rich compost
14:57worked into your ground
14:59along with that charcoal
15:00I spoke of
15:01is what lets any soil
15:03hold its moisture
15:04through a dry spell,
15:05and it is the surest
15:07drought defense there is.
15:09It is the foundation
15:10under all of it,
15:12and it is past time
15:13I showed you.
15:14But for now,
15:16remember this,
15:16the plants that endure
15:18are the ones
15:19that root deep
15:20and live thrifty
15:22and waste nothing,
15:23that ask little
15:24and bear much
15:25and stand through
15:27the hard, dry days
15:28when the pampered things
15:30have quit.
15:31There is a lesson in that
15:32for a plant
15:33and for a man both.
15:35The people who built
15:36this country
15:37with their hands
15:38knew that,
15:39and we are only
15:40just starting
15:41to remember it.
15:42to remember it.
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