Anne,

I will be following this thread, since I plan to use aluminet as a shade cloth over my backyard raised beds starting in late June, when our temps hit 100 degrees and pretty much stay there for three months.

I am also using silvered plastic mulch this year, after reading recommendations from Darrel Jones' Selectedtomatoes site and swt tmtoes tst grdn dot com (abbreviated because it's verboten in this forum). I have had plants in the ground since January 1, and I have not seen one single weed (and moisture retention is superb). The silvered mulch shuts out almost all the light to the soil--how could anything green grow under it? I don't use any other weed block.

Also, everything I have read about it swears that bugs and birds are confused by the reflected light and stay away. I hope so. Perhaps the lizards will shy away too, thirsty little devils.

I am looking for sources of this silvered mulch if anyone has ideas where to locate it. I got my first batch at the verboten sttg.

I seriously doubt that aluminum foil would cook the tomatoes (unless you wrap a ripe tomato in it, perhaps), but it will reflect light and heat. I used it successfully last year to wrap containers. I think it would be a poor choice for mulch in that it would be difficult to keep a tight enough seal to prevent escape of moisture. Plastic would work much better. Foil might work over the black weed block to reduce heat, but I don't think you need the weed block if you are using silvered plastic mulch.

I am very familiar with the summer weather in CA's Central Valley. Your heat is similar to ours, although a bit less intense, but your late summers are much drier than ours. What works here might work for you, but again, might not.

Russ in Marana, AZ (former Californian who misses CA terribly!)

Anne, you made me go look.

I have one section of aluminet up right now, and I can look down on it from a second story window. Something I haven't done before.
It's pretty blinding. (actually, I just realized that my neighbors must love me cause it's sorta tacky!)

So it is reflecting a lot of light. But not like a point source of light, like al foil. It's more a diffused extremely bright glare.

It does make everything under it a lot cooler, and it will let water through.

I'd say go for it.

Corrie

Corrie,

Thanks for the feedback. I suspect that aluminet is more manageable than silvered plastic as a reflective mulch, but might not do much to help retain moisture. I'll decide when my order arrives.

The aluminet that you use, what density do you buy? It's available from 30% to 70%. Thanks.

Russ in Marana, AZ

Russ, I bought 40%.

But I'm also growing in the space between two - two story houses. Our neighbor's house blocks the late hot afternoon sun.

When I put up the aluminet, the plants are getting sun almost at soltice, but only between about 10am and 4pm.
Problem was, it would heat up the side of our house, and that would radiate all night.
Not only am I shading the plants, I'm shading the side of our house.

Corrie

Wonderful info, Corrie.

In the summer, my small backyard garden gets it all day long, an hour after sunrise to about 90 minutes before sunset. There is also a west-facing concrete wall that acts as a furnace into the night--and we have 80+ degree nights anyway. Would you recommend hanging a panel of aluminet on the wall that's near the raised beds? (I assume that's how you shade the side of your house, right?)I'm thinking 40 or 50% would be right for me.

Thanks again for these great tips. Although you certainly have more humidity, we both have relentless summer sun. I love it, but the garden certainly does not. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the aluminet does to help.

Russ in Marana, AZ

Russ, I have it attached to the side of the house, then coming out on a frame like a lean-to shade house.
I don't have a panel hanging on the wall.

Another thing to keep in mind.
It's a fairly thick woven shade cloth.
I'm pretty sure it's 40% when the sun is hitting it directly, perpendicular to the shade cloth.
Earlier or later in the day, the sun will come in at more of an angle and the shade cloth should block out more sun.

That might help you with afternoon sun and heat also.

Corrie

Hi,

Thanks for the input! I think I may go for it. I found a company online that will sell the standard widths (7', 14', 21', and 28') by the linear foot. All my beds are either 16' or 8' long - by various widths. I can order 16 feet of the 21' wide 40% cloth and cut it to cover all the beds with no waste at about 35 cents/sf including shipping. I've got an e-mail into the company to see if they'll cut the piece for me for free before I order. Seems easy enough to cut it myself if necessary and I can just staple gun the pieces to the wood frames of my raised beds. It's supposed to be very fray resistant, so I wouldn't be needing edge binding.

Anyway, I'll keep checking back for more comments (including any negative ones) and give it a bit more thought before actually placing an order.

BTW, I'm also thinking about using aluminet as a shade cloth above some of the beds this summer.

Anne

Anne and Corrie,

What are your sources?

Russ

Russ, Anne probably has a source in Calif.
I got mine from Frank at Signature Supply in Florida.
It was about 25 cents a sq foot for me.

Corrie

Here is a link that might be useful: Signature Supply

Hi,

Hope this isn't a duplicate - my computer sort of hung up so I'm not sure if the original version of this went through.

At any rate - in a cursory googling on aluminet, I came up with EnviroCept Greenhouses & Supply as the only place selling aluminet by LF (in the standard widths) rather than in precut sizes that would result in more waste in my situation. There could be other places, but will need to do a bit more googling to see what else might be out there at better prices.

Here's the link:

http://www.greenhouses-etc.net/equipment/aluminet.htm

Anne

Hi,

Just e-mailed Signature Supply for a price quote for 21' x 16' of aluminet plus shipping to my zip code (they don't give prices on their website). If it does come out to 25 cents/sf for me, I'll certainly go with them. For my needs it would be about $85 rather than the $120 that it would cost at 35 cents/sf. That's a pretty significant difference!

Anne

Hi,

I just got my order of aluminet from Envirocept - 9 pieces cut to size for no extra cutting fee. It came out to about $10 more for the approx. $120 order than Signature Supply, but Signature Supply was very poor in responding to e-mail - never found out if there was a minimum order or cutting fee - and, while cheaper per SF, Signature Supply had higher shipping and handling fees.

At any rate, the material is really interesting. It's a surprizingly open weave (40% shade) and very lightweight so I think it would be good as a shade cloth not impacted too much by wind. And it seems like it would be very hard to fray the edges.

I'm anxious to lay the material down over some of my beds that already have weedblock on them so I can start transplanting some cabbage, artichoke, and broccoli seedlings. Unfortunately, in trying to pull out some old tomato stakes from last season (I'm re-arranging my planting pattern for this year), I really did a number on my back and can't bend over at all - so it may be a while before I get around to it!

At any rate, eventually everything will get done, and I'll post a progress report as things go along.

Anne

Wow, what a great idea!

I have used Aluminet for several years for shading and it is very tough, light and knit, so it can be cut without having to hem.

If you are planning to use it as a shade cloth, make sure to get the plastic grommets that make it very easy to hang from structures. Also grommets well.

I use the 40% in the garden and it works like a charm.

For desert camping and festivals I run 70%, often layered for maximum shade.

For mulching, I would use the 70% for best moisture retention.

Thanks for this great idea.

I'm so glad I found this thread. I've put some reflective mulch down under my peppers and already I've had an issue with water permeability, I'm thinking the 70% aluminet might be the answer. Please keep us updated Anne.

I wanted to follow up on this thread..... I put aluminet down as a reflective mulch at the beginning of the season. There are enough variables that it's hard to tell how much it has affected things. I can say that my basil planted over the aluminet has fewer leaves/branches than my other basil plants but the leaves it does have are much larger than the others. I believe that I have fewer whiteflies and aphids in the areas with reflective mulch as well.

If you'd like to see how I used it in my veggie garden check out the link to my (very) new blog below.

Thanks for the idea Anne!

Here is a link that might be useful: Rockin' the Garden

Hi Cha Cha,

Your garden looks great! I only managed to get 2 beds covered with weedblock and aluminet and planted before I injured my back. I couldn't do much in the garden for a couple of months and the cabbages, broccoli, and artichokes I had planted were pretty much on their own (except for the watering set up on an automatic timer). Everything really grew great, but I did have some aphids and earwigs. They weren't on all of the plants and not bad enough to kill any, but still they were there. (Last year the aphids totally destroyed a couple of my plants even though I tried to take steps to eliminate them). A few weeks ago I finally finished covering my other raised beds and got in my cukes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini. So far, so good.

It's hard at this point to really assess the benefits of the aluminet as there are so many variables (weather, watering, etc.), so to get more of an objective measure of things, I went out at noon with a digital probe kitchen themometer and took the following readings (air temp as per wunderground for our city was 90):

At 3" deep (dry soil)-
Plain uncovered soil: 82
Weedblock (black): 89
Aluminet: 80

At 6" deep (dry soil), all of the readings were 74

So the aluminet would seem to help keep the roots cooler towards the surface (at least with current air temperatures).

We're supposed to get into the 100's this coming weekend, so I'll go out around 2 or 3pm (after the soil has warmed up more) and try my measurements again.

Stay tuned!

Anne

Hi Anne,

So glad you're back in the game (no pun intended). I haven't taken any temps to compare but besides the size of the basil leaves I do have two Heartland tomato plants to compare. One was the first to sprout the biggest and the hardiest of all my mater transplants - that one went into a whiskey barrel with no mulch. The other Hearland went into a raised bed that (darn it) is receiving less than ideal sunlight due to a thriving sour orange tree. The Heartland without mulch was always the bigger better one until recently when the "other" Heartland planted with aluminet has really kicked into gear. Even with it's extreme sunlight disadvantage I believe it will do just as well as its counterpart.

So.... I look forward to your updates!

Here is a link that might be useful: Rockin' the Garden

Does this product used as mulch help to reflect light back up the to the plants in areas with less that optimal (not enough) direct sun conditions?

It will increase photosynthesis but it won't increase the number of sunlight hours per day. In my experience it does help but it's not a total fix.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rockin' the Garden