Our high desert sun is intense. While warm season crops like tomatoes, peppers, corn and squash can handle full sun, many of our favorites enjoy a bit of shade.

Creating more robust and diverse garden ecosystems with varying degrees of light, moisture and warmth results in a slew of benefits. You might discover your greens are more tender, certain flowers look more vibrant, or that you don’t have to water as much.

MIMIC FOREST CANOPY

In a forest, trees of varying heights reach their leaves up toward the sun. Shrubs and wildflowers are everywhere, and beneath them lie grasses, shorter flowers and ferns. They’re cool in the shade, though specks of sunlight beam down. Beneath the smallest plants, pine cones and decomposing leaves cover the forest floor, blanketing a layer of dark brown, moist soil.

No one’s tending to the forest except Mother Nature. But in this diverse ecosystem, each layer compliments the others.

As you cultivate your garden, think about its layers. Is mulch blanketing your soil to help retain moisture and provide habitat for earthworms? Are you growing tall flowers beside your bed of greens? Add vertical space to your garden to mimic the layers of a forest.

Sunflowers and corn can cast shade on shorter plants to protect them from our hot afternoon sun. A wall of trellised cucumbers or squash can act similarly. Seed buckwheat with carrots to create a shady canopy for the carrots to germinate under.

Leafy greens will turn bitter and bolt quickly in the hot summer sun, so planting them in a spot with some afternoon shade will make for more tender greens. A little bit of shade for broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower will help to slow flowering and encourage tighter heads.