November 6, 2015
Floating row covers is a gardening product that is made of
spunbonded polypropylene. It is permeable to moisture and sun light and really
reduces wind damage.
In other areas of the country it can just float on the
surface of your bed and as the veggies grow they will lift the fabric. I
suspect in West Texas you could do this but the results would be less than
desirable. Wind would make the fabric beat the tar out of your plants. It is
for this reason I like to use 9 gauge fencing wire to make hoops.
In a lot of gardening catalogs they show the use of electric
conduit hoops. These are good because they are more ridged than the wire. I prefer
the wire because it is much more adaptable for my needs.
I use fabric for the entire life of the crop that it covers.
Whether I use seedlings or seeds the first weeks of the crops establishment,
fabric is laid right on top of the bed with the edges pulled taut and weighted
down with rocks.
Once the seeds germinate or the plants roots have healed, I
raise the fabric. A mistake I made one time was to raise the fabric the full 18
to 24 inch height at this time of growth. This tunnel heated up to much, the
humidity dropped, and all was desiccated. Because of this I use my 9 gauge
hoops and place them diagonally across the bed thus raising the fabric off the
plants (about 4 to 6 inches) and creating a nice little humid cocoon around the
young plants. This would be very
difficult to do with the ridged conduit.
Once the seedlings touch the fabric, I raise the fabric to
full height by moving the wire to a perpendicular position to the bed.
I do have plants that get taller than this 24 inch max height
but I have found that there is little to no damage to these plants from the
fabric hitting the plants in wind. Most of these plants it is not he vegetation
that is harvested but fruit within the canopy.
I used to use smaller gauge wire and space the small hoops
throughout the bed. I found this to be tedious and most of these smaller hoops
would usually get lost in the foliage. Not so with the 9 gauge.
I am not very good at putting things away and so with fewer
things to stash, I can keep track of where my wire is. I like the multitask capabilities of the 9
gauge instead of a ton of small hoops and then a ton of ridged hoops. I have
1320 linear feet of bed. The small hoops are triangulated every 2 feet and the
hoops are every 3 feet. This is a lot of wire and hoops. My 9 gauge does both
of these jobs.
Not perfectly but nicely.
Questions? I can be
contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more
garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
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