Ariel301
Attractive To Bees
I have learned that vegetable gardening where I live is almost impossible in the summer. It is very hot (100+ for months straight), dry (no rain between January and October), and can get windy. (As in, windy enough to blow a metal storage shed into the neighbor's yard and crumple it into a ball) But we are at a high enough elevation that it gets cool enough at night to make winter gardening difficult with plants that like heat...
So, I am trying to come up with a way to protect my plants from the summer sun, so they don't just burn up. My garden has no shade because we have no trees. Some people around here are using a shade cloth to make a sort of large tent that their garden is under--but this is out of my budget, considering that the cloth generally only lasts a year here, and it seems the stuff is pretty expensive. And the area I'd need to cover is about 30 feet by 40 feet; the wind would destroy a canopy of that size.
For the winter, I am using a cover for each row made of heavy white plastic tied down over a frame, sort of like a long tent over every row. This holds up well in the wind, and I noticed it seems to reflect some of the sun. Would this be of any benefit in the summer time, or would I just be creating a nice oven to boil my plants in? I have made ventilation holes in the plastic, but I'm wondering how badly it would hold the heat in? Would that not be such a problem if it was also holding in enough moisture? My garden has a drip watering system that is buried in the rows to water straight to the roots, but I do have a problem with it drying out fast, even with mulch, so the plastic tents help with that. The shade cloth would cost me $20 per row to use that in place of the plastic--ouch!
So, I am trying to come up with a way to protect my plants from the summer sun, so they don't just burn up. My garden has no shade because we have no trees. Some people around here are using a shade cloth to make a sort of large tent that their garden is under--but this is out of my budget, considering that the cloth generally only lasts a year here, and it seems the stuff is pretty expensive. And the area I'd need to cover is about 30 feet by 40 feet; the wind would destroy a canopy of that size.
For the winter, I am using a cover for each row made of heavy white plastic tied down over a frame, sort of like a long tent over every row. This holds up well in the wind, and I noticed it seems to reflect some of the sun. Would this be of any benefit in the summer time, or would I just be creating a nice oven to boil my plants in? I have made ventilation holes in the plastic, but I'm wondering how badly it would hold the heat in? Would that not be such a problem if it was also holding in enough moisture? My garden has a drip watering system that is buried in the rows to water straight to the roots, but I do have a problem with it drying out fast, even with mulch, so the plastic tents help with that. The shade cloth would cost me $20 per row to use that in place of the plastic--ouch!
