Every few years we start hearing the same words again. El Niño. La Niña. ENSO. They pop up on weather reports, in farming conversations and all over social media — usually followed by predictions of heat, drought, rain or a difficult growing season.

But what does El Niño actually mean for those of us growing vegetables in our back gardens? And perhaps more importantly. Do we need to do anything differently? The short answer is yes — but probably not in the panic-buy-every-water-tank-you-can-find kind of way.

The best thing we can do as gardeners is understand what might be coming and start preparing our gardens to cope with more difficult conditions.

First: What Exactly Is El Niño?

El Niño is part of a natural climate cycle called ENSO — the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. It happens in the tropical Pacific Ocean, thousands of kilometres away from us. During an El Niño event, surface waters in parts of the central and eastern tropical Pacific become warmer than usual. That change in ocean temperature affects atmospheric circulation and can shift weather patterns around the world.

Its opposite is La Niña, when those Pacific waters are cooler than usual. And between the two we can have neutral conditions. So although El Niño starts very far away from our vegetable gardens, changes in this enormous ocean-atmosphere system can eventually influence rainfall and temperature patterns here in southern Africa.

Does El Niño Mean South Africa Will Have a Drought?

This is where we need to be careful. El Niño does not automatically mean drought. South Africa is a big country with very different rainfall regions.

For much of the country’s summer-rainfall region, El Niño is often associated with hotter and drier summer conditions. But an El Niño year does not guarantee that every town will be dry, nor does it tell us exactly when rain will or won’t fall.

Weather is influenced by many different systems. And the Western Cape is particularly important to mention here. Much of the south-western Cape is a winter-rainfall region, receiving most of its rain from cold fronts rather than the summer rainfall systems affecting much of the rest of South Africa. Researchers at UCT’s Climate System Analysis Group have specifically warned against simply blaming Western Cape droughts on El Niño; the relationship between ENSO and rainfall in the south-western Cape is much weaker and more complicated.

So please don’t read a headline saying “El Niño is coming” and immediately assume that the whole of South Africa is heading into drought.

That’s not how it works.

But Something IS Worth Watching

The South African Weather Service reported earlier this year that weak La Niña conditions were expected to return to neutral, with the possibility of conditions developing towards El Niño by the end of the Southern Hemisphere winter. Importantly, SAWS also said that it was still too early to confidently determine the impacts of a possible El Niño event on South Africa’s coming summer rainfall season.

And I think that’s the important message for us as gardeners. We don’t need to panic. We need to prepare. Because whether this summer officially becomes an El Niño summer or not, building a garden that can cope with heat, wind and periods without rain is never wasted effort.

So How Do We Prepare Our Gardens?

This is where I think home gardeners actually have an advantage. We’re working with relatively small areas. We can mulch them. Shade them. Improve the soil. Change our watering. Move containers. Protect individual plants. And many of the things that help a garden through a hot, dry summer are things we should be doing anyway.

1. Start With Your Soil

If I could choose only one thing to work on before summer, it would be this. Healthy soil holds water better. Keep adding compost and organic matter to your beds. We want soil that can absorb water when it arrives and hold onto that moisture for our plants.

If your soil is hard, bare and depleted, water can run off the surface or disappear quickly. Good soil acts more like a sponge. This is one of the reasons we talk so much about composting, worm farms, bokashi and constantly returning organic material to the garden. We’re not only feeding plants. We’re building resilience into the soil.

2. Don’t Leave Your Soil Naked

If you’re heading into summer with bare soil between your vegetables, change that. Add mulch. Straw, dried leaves, suitable wood chips and other organic mulches can help reduce evaporation and protect the soil surface from the baking sun.

It also helps moderate soil temperature. Stick your hand underneath a good layer of mulch on a hot day and compare that soil with exposed soil nearby. You’ll understand very quickly why I love mulch.

3. Change HOW You Water

One of the worst habits we can take into a hot summer is giving the garden a tiny splash of water every day. We want water travelling down into the root zone. Water deeply and effectively rather than simply wetting the top few centimetres of soil. And check before watering.

Push your finger into the soil. Dig a little hole. Look underneath the mulch. Don’t assume the garden needs water because the surface looks dry. Also remember that a plant drooping at 2pm on an extremely hot day doesn’t necessarily mean the soil is dry. Some plants temporarily wilt during intense heat and recover as temperatures drop.

Check the soil before automatically reaching for the hose.

4. Water at the Right Time

During very hot weather, I prefer getting water into the soil early in the morning. Plants then go into the hottest part of the day properly hydrated. It also reduces some of the water loss we’d get watering during the heat of the afternoon. And concentrate that water where it is actually needed, at the roots.

5. Get Your Shade Plans Ready BEFORE the Heatwave

Don’t wait until the forecast says 40°C to start looking for shade cloth. Prepare now. Shade cloth doesn’t necessarily have to cover your garden permanently. Temporary protection during extreme heat can make an enormous difference, particularly for seedlings, leafy greens and newly transplanted plants.

Even something as simple as strategically positioning shade cloth to protect plants from the harshest afternoon sun can help. The goal isn’t to turn the vegetable garden into a cave. We’re trying to reduce extreme heat stress.

6. Think Carefully About Containers

Containers are often the first part of the garden to struggle during very hot weather. There’s simply less soil available to hold moisture, and pots can heat up incredibly quickly.

If you’re growing in containers:

• Use the largest practical containers.
• Mulch the surface.
• Check moisture more frequently.
• Group pots together where appropriate.
• Move vulnerable containers out of brutal afternoon sun during extreme heat.
• Make sure you’re starting with a good growing medium that can retain moisture while still draining properly.

And remember that a tiny pot will usually need much more attention than a large one.

7. Don’t Push Already-Stressed Plants

When plants are battling extreme heat or drought stress, it isn’t necessarily the time to start throwing every fertiliser in the garden shed at them. Our first job is to reduce the stress. Make sure the plant has adequate moisture. Protect it from excessive heat. Check its roots and soil.

Then worry about feeding. A stressed plant needs help, not ten different treatments.

8. Plant With Summer in Mind

We also need to become cleverer about what we plant and when. Succession planting becomes particularly useful. Instead of planting 20 lettuces at once and watching all 20 struggle through the same heatwave, plant smaller batches. Use taller crops and trellises strategically to create some afternoon protection for more sensitive plants.

And pay attention to your own microclimates. There may be a corner of your garden that receives brutal afternoon sun in January and another that gets gentle morning sun and afternoon shade.

Those differences matter.

9. Harvest Water When You Can

If you have the ability to collect rainwater, do it. A rainwater tank is wonderful, but water harvesting doesn’t have to begin with an enormous system.

The bigger lesson is simply. When water is available, don’t waste it. And in the garden itself, healthy soil rich in organic matter is also a form of water storage. We want rain soaking into our soil rather than racing away from it.

10. Don’t Forget About Wind

Heat gets most of the attention, but wind can dry a garden incredibly quickly. Plants lose water through their leaves, and hot, dry wind can dramatically increase that stress. Check which parts of your garden are most exposed. A trellis, hedge, screen or other permeable wind protection can sometimes make a substantial difference.

Just be careful about creating a completely solid barrier that causes turbulence elsewhere.

And Then There Are the Pests…

A stressed garden can also become a vulnerable garden. Hot, dry conditions can favour some pests, while weakened plants may be less capable of coping with attack. That means summer garden care shouldn’t only be about watering. Keep looking. Turn leaves over. Check growing tips. Look underneath plants. Walk through the garden regularly.

The earlier we spot a problem, the easier it usually is to manage.

My Biggest Advice? Don’t Garden According to Headlines

This is probably the part I want you to remember most. If we do move into El Niño conditions, that doesn’t mean every South African gardener will experience exactly the same summer.

One area may receive a thunderstorm while another misses it completely. Cape Town’s weather will behave differently from Johannesburg’s. Durban won’t have exactly the same challenges as Bloemfontein. And even two gardens in the same suburb can behave differently because of shade, wind, soil and surrounding buildings.

So use the forecasts. Follow the South African Weather Service. But also start learning to read your own garden. Put your fingers into the soil. Watch where the afternoon sun falls. Notice which beds dry out first. See where the wind moves through. Keep adding organic matter. Mulch. Prepare your shade structures.  Check your irrigation.

Because ultimately, we can’t control whether El Niño arrives. But we can build gardens that are much better prepared for whatever summer decides to throw at us. And that, for me, is what growing food at home is really about.

At our VanZylStead Open Day in August, we spent a lot of time talking about many of these exact subjects — preparing for summer, understanding your garden, watering correctly, protecting plants from heat, improving your soil and making small changes now that can make a big difference later in the season.

And the good news is, you don’t have to have been at the Open Day to get all that information.

Our Open Day Notes are available to purchase on our website.

If you’re serious about growing a healthy, productive food garden this season, get the guide. Download it, keep it on hand and come back to it as the season changes and new challenges appear.

Don’t wait until your plants are struggling in the middle of summer to start looking for answers. Prepare now. Grow smarter. And keep the guide close when you need it.

Thank you for being here, and supporting us. This is Our home. Our classroom. Where we grow.

Tash en Die Familie