Monsoon Gardening in Arizona: How to Garden During Monsoon Season
If you garden in the low desert, you’ve probably heard other gardeners talk about monsoon gardening. It refers to a second planting window for heat-loving crops that opens between the summer garden and the fall garden. The storms are a signal that conditions are shifting enough to make that window possible.
People have been growing with the monsoons here for centuries. The idea is simple. Summer moisture and slightly milder conditions give a short window to get another round of beans, corn, squash, and other heat-lovers in the ground.
Key Takeaways: Monsoon Gardening in Arizona
- Monsoon Gardening in Arizona refers to a second planting window for heat-loving crops between summer and fall, relying on temperature rather than just rain.
- During monsoon season, expect humidity, dust storms, and sudden heavy rains, which affect planting and gardening strategies.
- To prepare, gardeners should focus on wind damage prevention, like trimming trees and staking tall plants before storms hit.
- Plant heat-loving crops between mid-July and August when temperatures cool, and choose shorter-maturing varieties to ensure harvest before frost.
- Monitor soil moisture carefully, as higher humidity reduces watering needs, and avoid root rot by ensuring good drainage during heavy rains.
What We’ll Cover:
- What Does Monsoon Season Actually Mean for a Low Desert Garden?
- How Do I Get My Garden Ready Before the Storms Hit?
- When is the Right Time to Plant During Monsoon Season?
- What Can I Plant During Monsoon Season in Arizona?
- How Should I Water During Monsoon Season?
- Do I Still Need Shade Cloth During Monsoon Season?
- How Do I Stay Ahead of Pests and Disease When it’s Humid?
- What if I Don’t Want to Plant Anything Else this Summer?
- Monsoon Gardening FAQs
What Does Monsoon Season Actually Mean for a Low Desert Garden?
A monsoon is a seasonal shift in wind direction. Our winds change over the summer and start pulling moisture up from the south, mostly from the tropical Pacific through western Mexico. That added moisture is what builds our summer thunderstorms. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension covers the science in Arizona and the North American Monsoon System if you want the full explanation.
What matters for your garden is what comes with that shift.
The low desert sits on the northern edge of the North American Monsoon System, which is why our monsoon activity swings so much year to year. Some summers we get regular soaking storms. Other summers bring dust, wind, and almost no rain.
From June through September, expect some combination of:
- Higher humidity
- Wind, including microbursts
- Dust storms
- Rain, sometimes very heavy and very fast
- Lightning and occasional hail
- More insect activity, including palo verde beetles, leaf-footed bugs, cicadas, and cicada killer wasps
Dust storms seem more common than rain in my garden. Haboobs roll through, coat everything, and move on without dropping anything useful.
Even in a dry monsoon year, that jump in humidity helps relieve some stress on plants. Combined with days that are getting shorter after the solstice, it can make a difference in how plants handle the heat. That’s why monsoon planting still works in a year with barely any rain.
How Do I Get My Garden Ready Before the Storms Hit?
Wind often does more damage in my garden than rain.
Trees
Trees cause the most expensive damage. A large tree coming down on a roof, a fence, or a garden bed is a much bigger problem than a flattened tomato plant.
- Have desert trees selectively pruned before monsoon season if they have heavy, poorly structured growth. Avoid over-thinning the canopy.
- Thin heavy new growth on deciduous fruit trees for the same reason.
- Water trees deeply year-round so they build deep roots. Shallow-rooted trees are the ones that topple.
- Have severely weakened or structurally unsafe trees evaluated. They’re the first to fail.
Tall plants
You may want to stake corn and large branching sunflowers. Roselle and Mahogany Splendor hibiscus need staking. Zinnias and tall tomatoes benefit too.
It’s better to stake before the plant needs it, not after the first storm. I also plant giant sunflowers next to vertical supports I already have in the garden so I can tie the stem to something solid instead of adding a stake later. Check your ties through the season. A tie that fits in July can girdle the stem by September.
Structures
Trellises, arches, and shade structures need to withstand wind. I bury the steel poles for my large shade structure and my arched trellises two feet deep and set them in cement. My shade cloth whips around in the wind, and it has held up through some crazy windstorms.
A microburst can take out almost anything, and there’s not much you can do about that.
Rain
Monsoon rain often comes through quickly, and most of it runs off unless you’ve set your yard up to catch it. Even simple earthwork, directing runoff toward trees and beds, makes a difference. I walk through the options in my guide to rainwater harvesting for desert gardens.
When is the Right Time to Plant During Monsoon Season?
I often plant around August. But each year is different. You get a few overcast, humid days; it feels like the season has turned, and then you’re right back to 110°F. Those overcast days fool you into planting too early.
Watch the ten-day forecast and look for a stretch where highs drop. If it’s 110°F and above, I wait. Nothing wants to be transplanted into that. When I see several days in the low 100s coming, that’s my window.
A few things that make the difference between plants that take and plants that fry:
- Harden off transplants properly. The process for hardening off seedlings in the heat is explained here.
- Plant transplants in the evening so they get the whole night to settle before facing the sun.
- Plant seeds a little deeper than usual. Soil is cooler down there. Mulch lightly over new seeds to hold moisture, and expect to water them twice a day until they’re up. How to plant seeds outside gives you more information.
- Baby everything for the first two weeks. Extra shade, extra water, daily checks. New plantings have no root system to fall back on.
I add tomatoes and peppers in August most years rather than July. I’ve lost tomatoes I put out too early. What surprises me is how well they do overall, given what we ask of them in August. Give them shade for the first few weeks and most of them pull through.
What Can I Plant During Monsoon Season in Arizona?
Heat-loving crops only. Cool-season vegetables come later, in the fall garden.
From transplants: basil, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, and eggplant.
From seed: amaranth, corn, cucumber, basil, okra, summer squash, winter squash and pumpkins, and beans of every kind: tepary beans, pinto beans, lima beans, and pole and bush beans.
The traditional monsoon crops here are the ones grown through Arizona summers for centuries. Tepary beans, amaranth, corn, and squash all handle this season well.
Days to harvest are important. The solstice has passed and days are getting shorter, so plants take longer to mature than the seed packet suggests. If you have a choice between a 65-day variety and a 90-day variety, take the 65-day one.
Count backward from your first expected frost, usually sometime in December in the low desert, and make sure the crop has time to finish. My Arizona vegetable planting calendar for the low desert lays out the timing for the rest of the year.
How Should I Water During Monsoon Season?
Higher humidity means plants lose less moisture to the air, so they need water less often. A stretch of humid days after a soaking storm can mean skipping a watering entirely.
What I do:
- Check the soil before watering. A soil probe or your finger works. Dig down a few inches. If it’s damp, wait.
- Use a rain gauge. It’s hard to guess how much fell. If it’s more than 0.5 inches, I may skip watering the garden and landscape.
- Water in the morning when plants need it, so they start the day hydrated, and the foliage dries quickly.
- Give the garden a good hose down after a dust storm. All that dust sitting on the leaves is tough on plants, and spider mites love the conditions it creates.
- Water long and deep at least once during summer on landscape plants to flush accumulated salts down past the root zone. A long soaking rain can do this for you.
- Keep fruit trees on a consistent schedule. Erratic summer watering shows up later as split fruit on citrus and pomegranates.
Hot, dry, windy weather still means watering more often. Adjust for humidity and rain. I use Garden Grids in my raised beds, and I still check the soil before I run them.
Do I Still Need Shade Cloth During Monsoon Season?
Yes. Leave shade up until temperatures are consistently below 90°F.
My shade cloth whips in the wind all summer, and it has held up through some serious windstorms, which I credit to the poles being cemented in. The cloth itself lasts about three years before the sun breaks it down and it stretches out. When I replace it, the old stretched-out piece goes over the chicken coop.
More on setting up and adding shade cloth to a hot summer garden.
Living shade helps too. I plant sunflowers as shade for hot summer crops, which does double duty.
How Do I Stay Ahead of Pests and Disease When it’s Humid?
Heat plus humidity speeds everything up. Walking the garden every morning, even briefly, even when it’s miserable outside, can help keep small problems small. Handpick what you find. Pull damaged leaves. If a plant is far gone, take it out rather than letting it infect everything around it. I put together a short list of garden tasks worth doing every day if you want a routine.
What shows up most in my garden this time of year:
- Spider mites. Spray plants down after dust storms and during hot, dry stretches. How to get rid of spider mites
- Squash bugs. Use row covers, handpick eggs and nymphs, rotate crops, use vertical gardening, set boards as traps, and choose resistant varieties like butternut and early crookneck. How to get rid of squash bugs
- Thrips. Spray down with water, use rolled cardboard traps, and use blue sticky traps briefly, changing them often. How to get rid of thrips
- Leaf-footed bugs. Handpick eggs, nymphs, and adults. They multiply fast. How to get rid of leaf-footed bugs
- Grasshoppers. Attract birds; use floating row cover on young plantings.
- Ants. Usually beneficial and not worth treating. Bait traps only if they’re causing real damage.
More organic pest-control options that really work.
What if I Don’t Want to Plant Anything Else this Summer?
Skipping the monsoon planting is a legitimate choice. Plenty of summers I’ve been ready to be done. There’s still useful work to do.
Cut back tired summer crops. From mid-August to early September, cut back existing tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant to push new growth for a fall harvest. Plants that made it through summer already have established roots, which beats starting over.
Plant a cover crop. If a bed will sit empty for six weeks or more, plant something that feeds the soil instead. Warm-season options include buckwheat, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, and tithonia. More on that in Taking the Summer Off with Heat-Tolerant Cover Crops.
Start your fall garden indoors. Cool-season transplants started now go in the ground in October. Learn more in How to Start Seeds Indoors, and garden planning in five simple steps helps you decide what goes where.
If you’re building your first desert garden bed and want a step-by-step guide, my course 30 Days to Your First Desert Garden is for you.
For everything else to do each month, see my monthly desert gardening guides.
Monsoon Gardening FAQs
The National Weather Service defines monsoon season as June 15 through September 30. Storm activity usually peaks in July and August. Rainfall varies dramatically from year to year, so the dates mark the season, not a guarantee of moisture.
No. August is a good planting month for heat-loving crops in the low desert, and I usually add tomatoes and peppers then. Choose varieties with shorter days to maturity so they have time to produce before cool weather arrives in late fall.
No. Rain isn’t the signal. Temperature is. Watch the forecast and plant when highs drop out of the 110s, whether it has rained or not. Monsoon planting works in dry years too, because the higher humidity and shorter days take stress off plants.
Not automatically. Check how much fell with a rain gauge and check the soil before you decide. More than 0.5 inches of rain usually means you can skip watering your garden. Anything less rarely soaks in deep enough to matter.
Sweet corn, popcorn, or flour corn all work if you irrigate. Days to harvest matter more than type. Pick the shorter-season variety.
Waterlogged roots and root rot are common causes. Saturated soil pushes out oxygen, roots suffocate, and warm, wet conditions let disease spread quickly. Plants in poorly draining soil or containers without adequate drainage are most at risk. Skip watering after a good rain and check soil moisture before you water again.
Yes. Plant tomato transplants in August once highs are consistently below 110°F. Look for heat-tolerant varieties that set fruit in warm conditions and give them afternoon shade for the first few weeks. I’ve lost tomatoes by planting them out too early, so watch the forecast, not the calendar.
About three years in my garden before the sun breaks it down and it stretches out. I replace it then and move the old piece over the chicken coop, where it still blocks plenty of sun. Cemented-in poles matter more than the fabric itself for surviving monsoon winds.
what kind of corn is planted during monsoon? I’m hearing not sweet corn, but popcorn or decorative…in Tucson.
If you provide irrigation you can plant either kind. Look at the days to harvest. Shorter is better.
Great article! In my area of AZ (outside of Florence) “monsoon season” has produced almost zero actual rainfall for the last 3 years. If I get very little actual rainfall how does that affect the “what to plant” list for monsoon season? Should I only plant tomatoes peppers etc if we actually get rain during the monsoon season?
Generally even if we don’t get rain, the humidity increases and the shorter days make it a little easier on plants. I still plant but you may want to wait until August. That’s usually when I add my tomatoes and peppers. Let’s hope for a wet monsoon this year.