Lightweight 'insect guard' fabric stops ~3-4% of sunlight. Not enuf to make a difference. Nick's sells it in 10x10' packages for under 10.00. I use it for flea beetles and CPB. You can support it with...here's Dan's mantra...wait for it...black poly pipe, bent EMT, PVC hoops, wire frames; most garden catalogues with lots of extra stuff besides plants will offer the wire frame, but I dumpster dive for black poly pipe. Secure very well against the wind with clips - Johnny's Seed carries them now, cheap.

Some of my contraptioning last early spring, before last frost - foreground is bent EMT, toward the rear is black poly pipe and cattle panel:

{{gwi:1188779}}

HTH.

Dan

Thanks for the picture Dan....

Would you mind saying again what your supports are made of? I don't know what the abbreviations stand for.

I sorta know what PVC pipe is.. I think that's what I used in this project to bury the electric cord for the fountain.

But I don't what what those other things are that you mentioned.

Thanks!
Betty

EMT, Betty, is the silver metal conduit for electrical. PVC is the white plastic pipe for irrigation. Black poly pipe is the flexible irrigation pipe.

:o)

Dan

I looks longingly and dreamingly at the hoops and row covers, then I snaps awake, and remember the dozen or so episodes of my neighbors putting this stuff up and then along comes a spring wind storm, and, well, off it goes to Kansas.

Flagstaff, AZ.......> 200 miles desert for wind to really wind up ......> '52 garden

We'll get several days in April-May sometimes early June (8-15 days) where the winds will be in the high 30kts all day, gusting 40s. Last year we got a couple days with gusts in the 50s IIRC. The lightweight row cover can't stand two years of that, surely. I repurpose what's left and I've got some for the hoops now for right on the plants for when it gets below 0F.

By the way, Betty, that tree in the backyard needs attention to the branch structure - that'll split out eventually if not corrected...

Dan

Dan,
Does that material shred with hail?

Melanie

Pea-sized no. Bigger yes. But it absorbs most of the energy, saving your plants.

Dan

Since I actually have time on my hands now, I have started to get out some of my old garden books that I have not read. (I have quite a collection). Jeff Ball (I pretty sure that is his name) has a book called 60-minute garden. He has a design in there for hoop houses that will support the row covers, plastic, bird netting or anything else you can think of.

Billie

I have not tried this but I think that the interfacing used for sewing, could work if you get medium-weight stuff that has no adhesive, stiffener or other coatings on it. However, I think most of it will not be wide enough unless you are willing to sew a bunch of it together. The floating row covers I saw are about 64" wide and the Pellon is definitely less than that- maybe 30" or so. Once you sew all that fabric together, you might be better off getting the wider material. Another factor is how much space you would want to cover.

Thanks Dan!

About the tree, I mean.
You're sure right about the branches. Take a look at the sad shape it was in when I first moved in...

I've had a tree service in twice since I moved in, and I've been careful to keep it well-watered, and fertilized. It's looking better now than it did in 2006, I think.

Any other tips?

Thanks!
Betty

My goodness....

After reading the replies, I'm thinking that the floating row covers might be a bit more time intensive than I can manage.

My work schedule can be erratic, and sometimes I get home pretty late. If there's been high wind, and I 've been gone all day, I might get home and see that the row cover is gone, and then I find it down the street. In shreds. ;)

So I'm thinking again about the lil pop-up thing below. It has steel grommets on the edges, so I could maybe use tent stakes to tie them down. And the size is the same as what I plan for the raised bed. And I think I could use it several times.

The crookneck squash is my main goal this summer, and after that, I'll just have to see. I might even branch out and try spinach!

Here is a link that might be useful: lowes little pop-up greenhouse

That's an expensive solution to something with a higher wind profile that will yank little tent stakes no problem, and likely bend over and touch plants in wind. And you will have to vent else your plants will cook on a 60ºF sunny day (then no bug protection). Way cheaper elsewhere, but still requires daily management, whereas EMT and row cover does not.

My 2¢

Dan

Oh.

*sigh*. I suppose you're right, Dan .

I think the rows and PVC supports are intimidating because I've never seen them in real life, and I would be just floundering along .
I'm pretty sure I could eventually figure it out, just maybe with some mistakes along the way! I'm just concerned that my mistakes might make me lose the squash.
Just a worry wart, I know!

Whoops! I'm taking too long to compose again---watching AFV while I'm doing it! Here's my take on the subject, B2, written before I saw your reply!

I way second Dan's comments about your little garden pup tent, B2. It would need to be opened every day, and even if you managed to stake the bottom of it down securely, the first time a good gust of wind blew into the open side, I suspect it would rip right off of the grommets and be in Kansas by the time you got home.

I really don't think it would help much with squash either. If you sow them directly in the ground this year, after danger of frost, I think they'll do much better than the ones you started inside last year. Then, after they come up, keep an eye on overnite temps, just in case, and you can easily cover them with a large pot or a corrugated cardboard box overnite on the few nites it might get too cold for them, and by the time they get too big for a pot or box, overnite temps shouldn't be any problem anymore--and even if we still got an unusually cold nite, you could still throw an old bed sheet (or row cover) over them for the nite. Summer squash just don't take that long to start producing, and starting them after danger of frost gives you plenty of time for a good crop. (Something else I'd worry about! Squash gets mildew VERY easily, and if it were me, I'd be afraid that if they were closed up under something that didn't allow for at least some air circulation, they just might develop the mildew very early on, and once they get it, it's virtually impossible to get rid of it again.)

With spinach, you don't want the little pup tent---unless you're gonna air condition it! ;-) Spinach LOVES cold temps, and if it was getting heated up during the day in the tent, I think it would just cause it to bolt sooner. No special care for spinach! Just get it in the ground really, really early--when it's still cold out!

Dan, sorry I never got back here, but thank you for the info and recommendations up on top when I first posted! And I was gonna ask what EMT was too (Emergency Medical Technician!), so thank you for asking B2! When I was a kid, conduit was just---well---conduit! It's what my parents made our big growing quonsets out of---and that was LONG before anybody dreamt of PVC! "Black poly pipe" seems to me it's kind of flexible/floppy to do a very stable support job. Have you ever used it? (You say there's some in that picture, but I sure can't figure out which it is!) How does it compare to PVC? PVC is what I was thinking of using if I decided I needed to put in some sort of support! I'm thinking that with some "connectors" from Lowe's, HD, or Ace, I could fairly easily put together some little row-size hoop tunnels to fend off the leaf miners in spring! Or maybe I'll come kidnap you some nite, and for "ransom" I'll make you build some good protection structures for me! ;-) You seem to be really good at inventing protection and support structures! I'm not really worried about cold protection! My big problem is getting the cold crops in before it gets too HOT out! LOL!

Do you know what brand the stuff Nick's carries is, Dan? You're awfully far away from me! I'll be going to Paulino's (on a Wednesday Senior Discount Day) soon to get another bale of soil, and I'll check out what the lightest weight row cover they carry is.

Kat, I checked Pellon out online a little bit more and was very surprised to see it comes in 20" widths! It's been a long time since I bought any, but I thought I remembered it being wider than that! But I did find--online--a Pellon product that might be a possibility, and if I get over to the local JoAnn, I think I'll check it out if they carry it. It's 45" wide, and a 10 yard bolt is just $16.50---online! Forty five inches would be WAY wide enough for what I want it for, and if it's thin enough, that would be a pretty good deal---IF they carry it!

At least I have a couple more months to figure out what I want to do!

Wanna help me kidnap Dan, B2???

Skybird

If you don't find the wider Pellon at JoAnn's (I haven't seen it but may have missed it somehow), they might be able to special-order it for you.

Great idea, skybird!

*cracks up*

First, I'm flipping my winter squash practice and sowing indoors this year, then transplanting (without disturbing roots) into a Wall O' Water-protected spot to get a better jump on the season. Likely direct sowing earlier would work too, under a WOW if I could get the soil warm enough.

I have 1/2, 3/4 and 1" black poly pipe. You can see the 3/4 in the foto upthread right behind the spigot, and the last hoop in the background toward the gate at the front of the wall, in front of the spinach. I just got the 1" this past fall & haven't used yet, however last summer in Ohio I met a gardener there and he uses it to cover all his beds over ~5000sf of garden.

I don't remember the brand name at Nicks, just some lightweight stuff, a 10x10 bolt folded into a package and labeled. They carry two weights, one for 'summer insect barrier' and one for a 'frost blanket'. The frost blanket is pretty good stuff - 1.5 oz - and I'm using it in three hoops right now. My hoop with cabbage and spinach has a bolt, doubled, with some scrap in the middle, covered with a 4mil plastic. That has protected all winter with 2-3 nights below 0F [adding one more scrap under the hoop for an air gap] and the water hasn't frozen inside (nor have the aphids frozen to death...).

Dan