Shade Cloth

We have many of our early season, cold-tolerant crops planted.  These include lettuce, arugula, kale, spinach and mache which I hope to mix together to create a "spring mix" that I will sell at the Farmers Market in a few weeks.   Hot weather usually puts an end to these crops and they quickly go to seed when the weather turns consistently hot.   In order to extend the growing season for these plants, we cover the beds they are in with "shade cloth".

They have mostly been planted in the raised beds that Tom built out of cement blocks last fall and over the winter.  In order to put the shade cloth over them, Tom bought small diameter PVC pipe and curved it into arches that fit over the beds.  Here's a picture of how it looks:

The PVC pipe is held in place by 18 inch pieces of metal rebar that has been driven into the ground about a 10 inches in the holes in the cement blocks.  If you get the right size PVC pipe, it will fit down nicely over the rebar which will keep it very sturdy.  We then attach the shade cloth to the arched pipe with clamps.

In the background, you see some black plastic bags.  These are leaves that we scavenged last fall from around town.  They will come in handy this summer to use for mulch.  Mulch is another topic that I will address later in the summer.