Las Vegas gardening

I've been gardening in the desert for a while, but I'm getting more serious about my grow. I have a 10x20 outdoor garden with great organic soil made from MY chickens and mulch pile.
My mother plants are fruity pebbles and star killer. I think I'll take 10 clones each and go from there.
Pro, temps stay good until December, I've had fresh tomatos for Christmas!
Problem, it's 100 plus degrees. The heat has stunted my grows before.
I need ideas to help with heat and stunting, I plant to put them in the ground aug 21 during the eclipse. Check out the pics, bring on the comments. Anybody grow in the desert, outdoors?
Pics coming

This demands pictures. I've never seen a desert grow. I've been to Las Vegas during the winter months. Bone hurt cold. I can only imagine what the summer time cooks up on cannabis.

Working on pics. New to forums but I'll get the hang of it. Covered in gourds, should help with killer sun. Here's my mother plants. The soil here won't grow tumbleweeds. I've been mulching and chickens composting for years to get my soil in shape.
I also have a few I started from seed.

How....why....is everything green? I'm in Texas and the yard is dirt and brown.

How much is your water bill??

Spearfisher said:

I've been gardening in the desert for a while, but I'm getting more serious about my grow. I have a 10x20 outdoor garden with great organic soil made from MY chickens and mulch pile.
My mother plants are fruity pebbles and star killer. I think I'll take 10 clones each and go from there.
Pro, temps stay good until December, I've had fresh tomatos for Christmas!
Problem, it's 100 plus degrees. The heat has stunted my grows before.
I need ideas to help with heat and stunting, I plant to put them in the ground aug 21 during the eclipse. Check out the pics, bring on the comments. Anybody grow in the desert, outdoors?
Pics coming

Click to expand...

I grow in the high desert in northern Nevada and find that my outdoor plants do better with partial shade. I have them in 7 gallon fabric pots in my patio so they get sunlight in the morning and afternoon but shade during mid day. perhaps a sheet of translucent plastic and frequent watering will help them handle the heat and bright sun better.the fact that we are in the middle of a record heat wave does not help. my girls are going thru a gallon of water per plant every 2 days. good luck. this is a challenging environment

SouthCross said:

How....why....is everything green? I'm in Texas and the yard is dirt and brown.

How much is your water bill??

Click to expand...

You really want to know?
Over $100 month. Well over.
I hate the desert.

mauricem00 said:

I grow in the high desert in northern Nevada and find that my outdoor plants do better with partial shade. I have them in 7 gallon fabric pots in my patio so they get sunlight in the morning and afternoon but shade during mid day. perhaps a sheet of translucent plastic and frequent watering will help them handle the heat and bright sun better.the fact that we are in the middle of a record heat wave does not help. my girls are going thru a gallon of water per plant every 2 days. good luck. this is a challenging environment

Click to expand...

Do you have problems with stunting? When I was in pots I would go thru a gallon per plant per day.
I have installed misters across the top of the canopy along the top and a dropper on the ground.

Temp 106, humidity less than 20%, welcome to Vegas! Ladies are doing great, even though they love the sun, in this enviroment shade is mandatory.
In your respected opinions, what's the best indica and sativa strains best suited for the heat.
Will growing outside and cloning, keeping it going, will this help aclimate the plant? Will it become more heat resistant?
Has anybody tried those corn cob led lights? Funds are limited, I use 2 t5 4x4 fixture above and 4 68 watt CFLs per plant. Seems to work ok... I'm looking into building a couple of led fixtures. Anybody build there own lights?

GO and use a meat thermometer now as an experiment for below:

If you use fabric pots with coco/perlite with plant saucers on the bottom and keep them wet it will act like an evap and keep soil upto 80f max.
All my plants that did bad were in plastic containers.
You can put 2" later of organic potting soil for microbes on top and I also use CRFs with "a real kiss method" found here but instead of hempy i use fabric because everything else cooks here.
THe water is hard here so you can get the 14-14-14 NPK only CRFS at 1 TBSP per /gallon media is pretty conservative (i used almost 2 but got some nute burn slightly on tips)
in order to save some time in veg with manual labor of making feed.

You can also place burlap on top or evap cooler media to cool the top.

I'd assume any Sativas in flowering in November you'd have to cover the fabric and add mulch to the top to keep it warmer at nights.

Spearfisher said:

Anybody build there own lights?

Click to expand...

Building your own light can be very rewarding in cost savings. Plus you can make exactly the light you need for your setup. If you wanna build a cob light checkout cobkits.com for parts. Strip lights are also common builds on here. In the LED section under grow room design you can find many builds others have done to get ideas from. @coreywebster is very knowledgeable about LED builds.