Heat kills more plants than most gardeners expect — and containers cook first. Enter today’s forecast high from your weather app (we can’t see live weather, so you check and type it), tell us what you’re growing, and we’ll tell you what today demands.
Enter your ZIP, plant type, and today’s high above.
- Wilting in the afternoon that doesn’t recover overnight — that’s the line between thirsty and damaged.
- Blossom drop on tomatoes, peppers, and beans, or sunscald (pale, papery patches) on fruit.
- Leaf edges browning and curling, especially on containers sitting on hot pavement.
- Soil pulling away from the pot edges — a sure sign the root ball dried out completely.
We can’t text you about heat waves (yet) — email heat alerts are on the roadmap. Until then, this page plus your weather app is the whole system.
How it’s figured
Most vegetables shut down above about 90°F — pollination stalls, fruit sets poorly, and water demand spikes. Above 95°F the risk turns serious, and at 100°F+ even established plants can take lasting damage, which is why fertilizer is skipped on extreme days (feeding stressed plants burns roots). Containers dry out far faster than in-ground soil because every side of the pot heats up, and new transplants haven’t grown deep roots yet, so both get stricter advice at every level. These are typical ranges, not variety-specific guarantees. Your ZIP shows the nearest of 85 reporting cities for context; that’s station data, not your exact yard, and ZIP locations come from the US Census 2024 Gazetteer.