Last summer, I watched three months of careful gardening literally wither away in less than a week. After a spring of perfectly normal rainfall and moderate temperatures that had lulled me into a false sense of security, July brought a heat dome that parked itself over Bristol like an unwelcome houseguest who refuses to leave. Seven straight days of temperatures above 35°C turned my lovingly tended vegetable patch into something resembling poorly made vegetable crisps. The tomatoes actually cooked on the vine. I’m not being metaphorical—they genuinely started to split and roast right there on the plants.
I sat on my tiny balcony, surveying the damage and drinking lukewarm tea (it was too hot to boil the kettle in my already sweltering flat), when my phone pinged with a message from my dad: “How’s the garden?” with a sunshine emoji that felt like it was mocking me. I sent him a photo of my sad, crispy vegetables in response. His reply came a few minutes later: “This is why I stick to growing rocks.” Classic Dad humor.
But the truth is, I’ve been gardening long enough to know that these weather extremes aren’t just bad luck anymore—they’re the new normal. And if we want to keep growing our own food (which, let’s be honest, is one of the most direct ways to reduce our carbon footprint), we need to adapt our gardens to handle whatever bizarre weather patterns climate change throws at us.
So after my mourning period (which involved eating a lot of ice cream and scrolling through photos of my vegetables in happier times), I decided to completely rethink my approach to growing food. No more would I be at the mercy of increasingly chaotic weather patterns. My garden needed to become resilient, adaptable, and tough—basically, it needed to develop the personality traits of my grandmother who lived through rationing and still insists that a “little frost never hurt anyone.”
First things first, I had to get serious about water. In the UK, we have this odd relationship with water—we complain constantly about rain, then the minute we have two sunny days in a row, hosepipe bans come into effect and everyone panics. Climate change is only making this worse, with periods of intense rainfall followed by extended dry spells. My previous watering system consisted of “hoping it rains enough” supplemented by me frantically filling watering cans from the kitchen sink during dry spells. Not exactly sustainable.
I installed a proper rainwater collection system—two 200-liter barrels connected to the downpipe from my building’s roof. My landlord was surprisingly supportive after I explained the concept, though I suspect it was because I promised to stop flooding the downstairs neighbor’s balcony with my overflow. The barrels themselves came from a local food distribution center that was throwing them away (they’d previously held olive oil, so now my garden has a faint Mediterranean scent when it rains, which is delightful).
But collecting water is only half the battle—using it efficiently is the real trick. I ripped out my old irrigation setup (which was really just me with a watering can, so “ripped out” might be overselling it) and installed a simple gravity-fed drip irrigation system. The difference was immediate and dramatic. Instead of water evaporating in the midday heat or running off to places where no plants could benefit, every precious drop went directly to the roots where it was needed.
I also got religious about mulching. Like, evangelical levels of mulch enthusiasm. Every bit of exposed soil in my garden now gets covered with a thick layer of organic matter—straw, leaf mold, grass clippings, shredded paper, you name it. My neighbors definitely think I’m running some kind of mulch cult, especially when they see me collecting fallen leaves in the park and stuffing them into bags like they’re made of gold. (To be fair, decomposed leaves basically are gardening gold, so I stand by this behavior.)
The mulch serves multiple purposes in our new climate reality—it reduces evaporation, moderates soil temperature extremes, suppresses weeds, and gradually breaks down to feed the soil. During the next heat wave, my mulched beds stayed moist for days longer than unmulched areas. During the torrential autumn rains, they didn’t turn into mud soup. Mulch is magic, and I will die on this hill (preferably a hill covered in mulch).
But resilience isn’t just about water management—it’s also about what you choose to grow. I took a hard look at my planting choices and realized I’d been stubbornly trying to grow varieties that were increasingly unsuited to our new weather patterns. Those delicate lettuces that bolt the minute the temperature climbs? The water-hungry cucumbers? The temperamental berries that fail if there’s a late frost or an early heat wave? They all had to go.
This was emotionally harder than I expected. There’s something deeply satisfying about growing the exact same tomato variety that your grandfather grew, or the peas you remember picking as a child. But sentiment won’t fill your belly when the climate shifts. So I began researching more resilient, adaptable varieties—particularly those with deep roots, drought tolerance, and heat resistance.
I discovered that many traditional varieties from hotter, drier climates are already well-adapted to the conditions we’re now experiencing in the UK. Mediterranean herbs like rosemary, thyme, and sage laugh in the face of heat waves. Vegetables from more arid regions—certain varieties of beans, squash, and tomatoes—can handle dry periods better than their more common counterparts. Even better, many of these heat-lovers actually produce more abundant crops in our warming summers than they would have decades ago. Silver linings, I suppose.
I’ve also embraced perennials in a big way. Annual vegetables need to be replanted each year, and they’re vulnerable during their early growth stages. Perennials, on the other hand, have established root systems that can reach deeper water sources and weather tough conditions. My new garden plan includes perennial vegetables like asparagus, artichokes, and rhubarb, as well as edible shrubs and trees where space allows. My small sour cherry tree produced its first proper harvest this year despite the wild weather swings, while the annual crops around it struggled.
But perhaps the most significant change I’ve made is implementing season extension techniques. Climate resilience isn’t just about surviving summer heat waves—it’s also about adapting to the increasingly unpredictable springs and autumns we’re experiencing. Early heat can trigger premature bolting; unexpected late frosts can kill tender seedlings; warm winters might fail to kill pests that would normally be controlled by cold.
I’ve become a bit obsessed with creating microclimates. My tiny row of simple cold frames (made from old windows that my neighbor was throwing out—the benefits of living near a gentrifying area with constant renovations) allowed me to start seeds earlier and extend the growing season later. During a bizarre cold snap last May that took everyone by surprise, those cold frames saved my pepper seedlings while friends lost their entire early plantings.
For summer cooling, I’ve rigged up shade cloth systems that can be quickly deployed during intense heat. They’re not pretty—my aesthetically-minded friend Mark described them as “looking like you’re preparing for a very small apocalypse”—but they work. During last month’s unexpected heat wave, my lettuces survived under their shade cloth protection while my neighbor’s bolted and became inedibly bitter.
I’ve also started interplanting more deliberately—tall plants providing afternoon shade for heat-sensitive crops, ground covers protecting soil from evaporation, deep-rooted plants growing alongside shallow-rooted ones. The garden looks a bit more chaotic now, less like neat rows and more like a slightly organized jungle, but it’s significantly more resilient as a system.
The most important resilience strategy, though, has been diversification. I used to grow five or six types of vegetables each season. Now I grow at least fifteen, plus herbs and edible flowers. Some will thrive regardless of what the weather does; others might fail. The key is having enough diversity that something always succeeds. During last year’s wet, cool June, the peas and leafy greens thrived while the tomatoes sulked. During the August drought, the tomatoes finally came into their own while the lettuces gave up entirely. By planting a wider range of crops, I’ve insured myself against complete failure.
I’ve also embraced the concept of succession planting with a nearly obsessive fervor. Instead of placing all my bets on one planting of each crop, I stagger plantings every few weeks. If an unexpected weather event wipes out one generation of seedlings, there’s another batch already in the pipeline. Yes, it requires more planning and a slightly insane spreadsheet system that my friends mock mercilessly, but it’s saved my harvests more than once.
Has all this worked? Mostly. My harvest last year was about 60% larger than the previous year, despite the weather being objectively worse. I didn’t lose entire crops to extreme events. The garden bounced back faster from stress. And perhaps most importantly, I spent less time fighting against the conditions and more time working with them.
There’s something deeply satisfying about creating a system that can bend without breaking. My garden doesn’t look like the perfect Instagram-worthy plots with their geometric raised beds and color-coordinated plantings. It’s messier, more diverse, more adaptable. Kind of like nature itself.
Last week, my dad came to visit and I gave him the grand tour of my climate-resilient setup. He listened patiently to my enthusiastic explanations of water-efficient drip irrigation and heat-tolerant varietals, nodding occasionally and asking surprisingly pertinent questions. As we sat on the balcony eating lunch that included five different vegetables from the garden, he looked around thoughtfully and said, “You know, this isn’t just gardening anymore. This is planning for the future.”
And he’s right. My little experiments in climate-resilient growing aren’t just about getting a better harvest this summer—they’re about developing and sharing techniques that will help us all adapt to an increasingly unstable climate. Because if there’s one thing that’s certain about our future, it’s uncertainty itself. And in the face of that, resilience isn’t just nice to have—it’s necessary.
Though I’m still working on resilience against neighborhood cats who see my carefully mulched beds as luxury litter boxes. Some problems even climate-adaptive gardening can’t solve.
