Making Row Covers - Help

www.jordanseeds.com
Hard to find the wires, they are in with the plastic layer machines.
They supply lots of growers in Texas with sweet corn seed.

This message was edited Mar 29, 2007 12:27 PM

Thanks kabocha and Bernie...

Kabocha, with your 40" wide beds, how high are you making your wire hoops? A foot off the ground or have you found you can go much higher for protecting taller plants?

Bernie, now that you mention it I think I have some of those straight #9 pieces on my junk pile (er, uh, actually I was told a "junk pile" is now referred to as a "resources area"!). I'll have to go try to find them later this afternoon.

Shoe

Shoe -

My hoops over the 40" beds are about 2 feet high. I cut 8 foot lengths and stick them in the ground about 10 inches or a foot. The first year I did it, I made the tunnels 4 feet high, but soon realized that was not necessary and caught the wind too much. Actually, I was using concrete reinforcing wire, not hoops then. Probably you couldn't use the #9 wire for such high ones. I found I didn't like the concrete wire because I couldn't get at the plants.

Incidentally, in the one bed that had Agribon 30 on it this winter, the dill grew all winter - and isn't it supposed to be a summer plant? We had creamy dill salad dressing tonight on romaine lettuce that also grew great. It was under Agribon 19.

kabocha...thanks bigtime for the info! It sure helps to get an idea how far and how high the #0 wire can go. Sounds to me like it would be great for lettuces and other low-growing crops as well as protecting tomato/pepper plants while they are in the early stages of growth, eh?

Hmm...I have plenty of Agribon 12 laying around (they don't make 12 any more; that tell ya how old things are around here!?). Will have to give these hoops a try at some point this year! Most likely at this point in the Fall to extend crops...we've moved into Summer here already!

Thanks for hollering back!
Happy Growing!

Shoe (off to find my seed stock of dill so I can meet your salad!)

Shoe - I use the super light insect barrier on the squash, cukes & melons to fight the evil three: squash bug, cuke beetle and vine borer. No wire hoops were necessary.
http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/jozeeben/4502/
I'm trying it on the cole crops this spring.

All right, jozeeben: you've inspired me. I'm going to do it. I, too, want a halo of curcubits after losing everything last year.

So... you say you'd do more space between rows (how much?), fewer seeds (what spacing?) and one cover per row (how wide is the row, and how wide the cover... 10 ft?)

And what about pollination? Q tips?

thanks, jozeeben. I also have done that in the past (never used the hoops), just lay the "reemay" right on the plants. I was actually hoping to use the hoops to protect from frost/cold temps though more than protect from bugs.

Your garden journal is great! Love the pics! Good going!

And yes, Zeppy, I wonder too about the pollination with the row covers on the squash/curcubits, etc. With crops like lettuce/cabbage/radish, etc that would not be a problem but with other crops it might be.

Shoe

Last year I put two rows under one row cover. With rows being 30" wide with and a 12" walkway that stretched the row cover pretty tight. Each of my beds is 14' wide by 28' long with (4) 2.5' wide rows or (3) 3.5' wide rows. This year, I figured I'd plant the middle one or two rows with squash, each with their own row cover on 1' spacing thinned to 3' or 4'. The outside rows I'll probably plant clover or bush beans. I figured the squash will smother it? I'll pull the covers off after the squash start blooming (4 to 6 weeks) later and, then, spray with Biocide or Neem once a week in the evening after the bees have gone to bed. I hand pick a lot of eggs, too. It seemed like the bigger plants were better able to fend off the bugs or the bugs had problems finding the main stem. I also planted late on the 4th & 5th of July so it was August when the covers came off. I might have missed most of the borers, eh?

I let the cucuzzi gourd fend for itself (we eat when it's little like summer squash (but better)). Once it get's going nothing seems to bother it.

Okay, that's really helpful. Thanks!

Are you also widening paths?

I have 4' walkways around the beds so I keep the paths between rows narrow to maximize growing space in the beds. I started with 4' wide beds and then 14' wide and now 20' feet wide. They keep getting bigger and bigger. This is a picture of a 14' wide x 28' long bed and 4 rows of squash, cukes and melons. Later in the season they were spilling into the walkways & adjacent beds. So this year I'm only planting squash in the middle two rows.

edited for spelling!

This message was edited Apr 4, 2007 12:56 PM

Here's a picture of my origninal 4' wide beds:

Here's the 20 foot wide beds with five rows. 2 rows per cover and the gourds in the 5th row are left to fend for themselves.

Impressive! My main garden is 14 20x3' raised beds. I'm going to follow your lead with the squash... esp. the late planting. After the peas come out, the winter squash can have their bed.

Regarding hand picking, I do it, but the only eggs I ever find are the squash bug ones. I have not yet been able to identify borer eggs, though I'm very eager to, and cuke beetles are just the devil. I'm growing their favorite thing -- amaranth -- in the chicken yard and hopefully the chickens will take care of some of the cuke beetle population for me.

And WHAT were you using for fert on the original bed full of greens? Fish emulsion? Compost tea? Gorgeous.

I just add home-made compost, lime and Espoma 5-3-3 organic fertilzer 2 times a year. Then mulch with shredded leaves for happy earth worms. Here's how I make compost: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/682536/ . I like it to get hot, hot, hot!

You forgot about the "green thumb" element. Nice compost. One thing I've got lots of is chicken poo. Wherever we dump more of it (mixed with litter) there are bejillions of worms.
And yes, I counted.

The row covers saved the lettuce and cole crops for our near-record-lows this weekend.

Great photos Joe. I love seeing your garden! I vote you the Midsouth Veggie King. Glad everything survived that last cold snap.

My hummingbirds are back as of Easter, so I say bring on spring.
carol.