What shade materials are you using?

For all of us in this relentless 90-100+ degree heat, are you shading your plants? With what? I'm very concerned and decided to use sheets, burlap, towels, even cardboard to block primarily the westerly angle of the sun, For the youngest plants I'm shading noon sun too. Watering every day. Maybe all of this is overkill, but it would be worse for me to lose everything from not trying.

If you have any window/door screens lying around, or available for emergency use:
Attach black plastic (garbage bag), landscaping cloth, or whatever.
Place bamboo stakes or whatever for support around the plant(s) you want to shade...
Lean or secure the screen(s) against the supports.
Voila! Lightweight, portable shade screen(s).

This was purely accidental, definitely not pre-planning on my part, but my 3 main boxes have my potatoes planted on the western edge, some of them covering the entire SW corners of the boxes. At 18-24" tall, they are either shading or cooling the soil and plants in my boxes. So far only my squash and melons are showing some signs of heat stress, and they are not in boxes with potatoes! All carrots and tomatoes are doing great with the help of taters.

GG

WP I like your window screen idea! Mine are stored in the basement till lovely Autumn temps arrive, glad to have another use for them. I've draped stuff over the critter cages but I have giant pumpkin vines at another location and the pumpkins will need shade as they can grow huge rather quickly, 10-15+ pounds a day. Without shade the skin can harden and explode. But now I can start out with covered window screens till they outgrow them. If I'm that lucky tent poles and tarps come next.

GG Thats really nice how your taters have helped out! I didn't shade toms, cukes, or pole beans, yet they seem to look better! from the intense 100+ heat. Sorry - SFG-ing barely 2 years so everything still kid-like exciting to me.

At this time it seems all the plants are loving the extreme heat/shade. I can't believe it

I too am considering shading my garden. Thanks for the post and the information. We are seriously considering if the effort is "worth it." I have had some trouble with things this first year. Peas did not make it. Beans have all but died. Some things I have planted are still the same size they were when I planted them 5 weeks ago. ARGH! Kinda frustrating. Temps over 100 every day for over a week and no rain and 25-30 mph winds are not favorable growing conditions. I am not sure I could keep any shade from blowing away. But I might have to try. Thanks again for all the info. At least that is encouraging.

Oh my goodness, so sorry. Also extending a virtual hug
That is some rough garden training going on there. If nothing else I'd concentrate on saving what you can, and also creating The Most Wonderful Homemade Compost possible for your guaranteed future success. I would highly recommend Your library or bookstore copy of The Complete Compost Gardening Guide, by B. Pleasant and D. Martin. I followed Mel's simple home compost directions which are terrific and works fastastic. This other book will give you deeper composting knowledge. Around $20.

i have put sheets over the top of all my garden trellises--the boxes are framed on all sides, so the sheets make it look like a party canopy--would be festive if the sheets were pretty!

my back gardens are in shade most of the time from the massive tree canopy--which until this year i was cursing--but that garden is the one that is happy right now.

Thanks for confirming your plants are tolerating extreme heat + shade. In general plants are much tougher than what I would have guessed. The news reported that our unusual heat is expected to become our near future normal summer temps. I'm not prone to depression, but that nearly got me.

llama momma wrote: In general plants are much tougher than what I would have guessed.

give your garden to a 6 year old and let her tend it for you--she'll prove how hardy most plants are.

Thanks so much for the encouragement. I will press on. And I am going to compost everything I can. I did harvest beets today. They are in the pot starting to boil for slicing and pickling today. I plant 8 squares (9 per square) as per the book. I got 5 pounds. Is that good or bad or do you know?

Also, do you compost the empty toilet paper and paper towel tubes? I read on the net you could but when darling hubby saw them in my compost bucket he protested that they had glue on them. Any suggestions. I will get out the recommended book.

Thanks again!

Also, do you compost the empty toilet paper and paper towel tubes? I read on the net you could but when darling hubby saw them in my compost bucket he protested that they had glue on them. Any suggestions. I will get out the recommended book.


They can and should go into the compost pile or the worm bin.

Kay

rowena___. wrote:

llama momma wrote: In general plants are much tougher than what I would have guessed.

give your garden to a 6 year old and let her tend it for you--she'll prove how hardy most plants are.

With 5 critter cages maybe I do as much damage as a 6 year old. Tall, mature plants like potatoes and batchelor's buttons are growing right through the top of 2 ft tall cages rip, rip, rip from lifting/replacing. They come right back for more. And from the sides I've crushed countless beet and carrot tops. A little experience taught me I don't need to cringe anymore.

Momof5j's I put all the tp rolls and paper t. rolls in the compost heap until I got a worm bin. Now it's used for bedding and they eat it too. Since they particularly go for corrogated cardboard starchy glue, I'm hoping that tp and paper towel glue is about the same. In your case I would be very comfortable putting tp and p towel rolls in the compost.

Thanks for the info. Now about these worms. What? I suppose this is different than just sticking some night crawlers left over from the last fishing trip in my boxes? I tried that. The next morning I found little dead worms. So until I get more info on the worm situation, I will assure darling hubby that the t.p. and p.t. rolls are ok. By the way, I am using a tumbler composer set up in the corner of my garden. Any suggestions on that.

I just purchased some Sun Shade material from my local Hardware store. It was a roll 6' X 20'. I just cut the length I needed for my Tomatoes SFG. One side of my tomatoes was getting burned by the sun real bad in that 1/2 the plant was brown with no leaves and the other 1/2 was green with green tomatoes. I just put the Sun Shade along the one side that was getting burned to help the plant and keep the green side green. I was too late for my Cucumbers as they had already died from the heat. The July and August heat in South Louisiana can be real hard on veggies.

It is hot, hot, hot. I just brought out my shade cloth to try to help. It is a floating row cover that I bought last fall to help extend the fall season. When I got the cloth, the instructions said not to use it to prevent frost damage. Therefore, I can only guess that it is for shade so I tried it out today. Unfortunately, I had cut it up into smaller pieces in the spring but decided to use it anyway. Take a look.

I use shade cloth from Home Depot/Lowe's for the 100-120 degree temps in AZ and they seem to keep everyone alive and happy.... even tomotoes (though they don't produce fruit in the heat... I'm hoping for a fall bounty).

I haven't had to use shade yet for anything except seedlings that were hardening off, but I'm thinking about potential shade solutions as our summer gets warmer. We've been ranging from 80-90 or so, and of course no rain here in our semi-desert climate. My garden plot gets full sun from around 8AM - 7PM, with one end of it getting a little shade after 5 or so because of the wall on the westerly side. That's where the pumpkin is.

I was thinking that I could pop out the 1/2" PVC that's used as hoops right now and make a shade that slides into the brackets on the west side and would shade the SFGs starting at around noon. Using electrical conduit or PVC, make it exactly the same way you'd make a trellis but attach shade cloth to it instead of netting. You could make it pretty tall so it starts to shade early enough. Of course it would act like a sail if you lived in a windy area.. but we're usually only windy in the fall here (hello Santa Ana winds!). It would be easy to remove and store in the side yard when not needed.

Momof5Js wrote:Thanks for the info. Now about these worms. What? I suppose this is different than just sticking some night crawlers left over from the last fishing trip in my boxes? I tried that. The next morning I found little dead worms. So until I get more info on the worm situation, I will assure darling hubby that the t.p. and p.t. rolls are ok. By the way, I am using a tumbler composer set up in the corner of my garden. Any suggestions on that.

I don't know why the nightcrawlers died. Compost worms aka red wigglers are a variety that is suitable for indoor worm bins. I have one of those. They can and do survive outdoors though. It seems they don't do as well in temps over 85 degrees or so. Very easy to find lots of worm info on this forum. White search box : )

Re: the compost tumbler, sorry, my experience is with 3 sided pallets on the ground.

We're only in the low 90's but I'm using burlap on my lettuces and plastic over my pak choi. (can't see the plastic too well on this photo)



Everything is getting watered twice a day. My beet greens were almost laying on the ground when I went to water them this afternoon.

CC

llama momma wrote:
I don't know why the nightcrawlers died. Compost worms aka red wigglers are a variety that is suitable for indoor worm bins. I have one of those. They can and do survive outdoors though. It seems they don't do as well in temps over 85 degrees or so. Very easy to find lots of worm info on this forum. White search box : )

Re: the compost tumbler, sorry, my experience is with 3 sided pallets on the ground.

Thanks for the info. I did do some research on the worms. I am thinking I just might have to build me on of those boxes. We do keep out dog "shed" cooled and heated so we could keep the worm house in there.

That sounds perfect. I have briefly looked at outdoor inground insulated worm boxes and hope to get that going this Autumn. Some insulate with styrofoam, but I've just started looking into it. Have to read a lot more about it.