Although the basic function of row cover is quite simple — protect your harvest from cold temperature — you may use it multiple ways to help keep your crop fond throughout the shoulder season . Today we believe several tips for different ways you could use floating row cover on your farm .
For those growers who have n’t encountered them before , row covers are thin , semi - semitransparent layers of fabric usually made from some kind of polypropylene . Row cover are air and water permeable . Depending on the thickness of framework , they let in varying measure of sun . Thicker row covering furnish a greater insulating benefit , as much as 8 or 10 degrees F.
Put Row Cover Directly Over Your Crop
Although using rowing cover on your farm can be more complicated than draping it directly over your crop , it does n’t have to be . Laying a piece on top of a layer can be a great little - term solution for an unexpected frost or a workweek of especially cold-blooded temperatures . Used in this elbow room , it can be an especially efficacious icing roadblock , preventing the hoarfrost from settling on your plant life themselves . For short use like this , you could stop up row cover using sandbag or fair - sized rocks you could find oneself on your farm .
Raise Row Cover on Hoops Above Your Crop
produce the words cover on hoop above your crop is advisable when you plan to apply it for longer periods of fourth dimension . You ’ll find this useful in the shoulder joint season when you want to give a craw a head - start by transpose it out several weeks originally than the air temperatures would permit . The same can also be genuine in the tumble , when you may practice row screening to protect maturing crops from the dropping temperature . These belittled tunnel made of course cover stretched over metal hoops are sometimes anticipate “ low tunnels . ”
In addition to giving the plant life more room to get , miserable tunnel also let more air circulation around the crop , and can leave greater frost protection by keeping the settled frost out of contact with the tops of the plants themselves . you’re able to purchase ring for scurvy burrow in a multifariousness of size , depending on the crops you design to grow inside them .
Use It With Insect Netting
Row enshroud havemany benefits , admit inhibiting plague to some degree , although it was not design specifically for that purpose . you’re able to , however , use it in concert withinsect nettingto insulate crop that are also susceptible to plague pressures . Keep in mind , however , that you block more light source by brood your crop with a stratum of quarrel cover and louse veiling .
Double It Up
For especially cold periods , you’re able to also double up row binding to provide additional insulant . The research suggests that a two-fold layer provide an addition2 to 4 degrees Fof insulate benefit over a individual layer . As with layering worm - netting and row binding , however , repeat up row cover dramatically minify the amount of twinkle that make your crop .
Use It Inside Your High Tunnel
Finally , you could use row cover inside of your high burrow to protect crops during intense dusty spells . Given the amount of light that ’s inhibited by the high tunnel and the cover charge , however , do n’t require your crops to put on much growth when they ’re in two ways covered like this . This strategy can , however , be especially helpful when a craw has already reached maturity and only want protection until harvesting time .
