Planting the Plains: A Proactive Approach to Uncertain Weather

By Anthony Reardon

Published June 19, 2026 at 7:00 AM CDT

There’s another “El Niño” weather pattern on the horizon, which can sometimes affect what you plant in your garden. But there are ways to mitigate these effects by making some informed choices about what to plant, and for what reasons. We’ll talk about those choices and reasons in this week’s episodes!

Rather than just guessing at how the weather might affect your garden plants, a little research can help. When the incoming weather event is an emerging El Niño pattern, it might still impact your garden in the High Plains! So this week, we’ll talk about how making some intelligent choices can reduce this sort of impact, simply by planting items that are less susceptible and more hardy in our drier, hotter High Plains weather.

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Anthony Reardon

Anthony Reardon is the Horticulture – Small Farms Extension Agent for Johnson County, Kansas.

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