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Re: Hello???????????????????

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On Wed, 2 May 2001 Kimyoung@aol.com wrote:

> Hi there everyone,
> Does anyone out there use floating row covers?  I have been using them but I 
> am finding them rather difficult and time consuming.  I never can get them to 
> stay down on the soil...

I use floating row cover - it's my only hope of growing some crops in
Snail Country, here. I can also get direct-seeded lettuce to germinate
under it, which I never succeeded in doing before. However, I don't use
it over everything - only for places where I have a specific reason for
wanting it.

Currently, I have a raised bed with a hinged frame as a cover. I staple
the row cover to the inside of this cover, so that the edges are
sandwiched between the frame and the raised bed. Then the frame's
clamped down to the bed with a couple of catches, which gives me a
mostly bug-proof seal.

When I want to get at the plants, I just undo the catches, lift the
whole frame on its hinges, lean it on something, work with the plants,
and then lower it again. This raised bed currently contains all of the
crops that simply must have floating row cover. Eventually, I'd like to
make covers like this over all of my beds, since those crops should be
rotated. (And the cover's nice for stapling plastic to in late
winter/early spring, for a kindasorta cold frame.)

Without some kind of frame or other structure, row covers are a pain,
yes. What I did before I had this bed was use a lot more row cover than
was strictly needed to cover all the plants, folding it in pleats. Then
I buried three out of four sides of the pleated rectangle of row cover
pretty thoroughly, because they were going to stay buried - I'd sort of
dig a shallow trench, as if I were going to transplant onions or leeks,
tuck the edge of the cover into the trench, and fill it in.

Then I held down the fourth edge with a long, narrow, fairly heavy piece
of wood (Broom handle? Scrap from making a raised bed? If you don't have
wood, how about bricks?). When I wanted to get at the plants, I lifted
the piece of wood and sort of ducked under the row cover, which was
possible because of all of those extra folds - the row cover made a sort
of tent, opening on the fourth side.

In your case, if you want to protect just one small area, I can think of
a few possibilities:

- Make small frames of wood, sort of like picture frames, the size of
the area that you want to protect.  Staple the cover to the underside,
with lots of excess to puff out of the top. Smooth out the soil to
minimize gaps and plop the frame on the ground.

- Make the same frames with wire, and maybe use your garden staples to
apply some pressure so that the wire presses into the soil a bit, to
minimize gaps?

- Cut a slice out of the middle of a cardboard box, maybe? and staple
the row cover to the cardboard, again with excess to puff out the top,
then push the edges of the box into the ground.

- If you wanted to protect a very small area I could imagine doing the
same thing by cutting both the bottom and top off of a two-liter soda
bottle, stapling the row cover to the top of the plastic, and pushing
the bottom into the ground. I suddenly think I'm going to try this on my
sunflowers, until they reach a size large enough to stand up to the
snails.

- Put all of the crops that benefit from row cover together, and
staple/tie/otherwise attach the row cover to your wire cages. This isn't
an entirely satisfactory suggestion, since I'm not sure how you could
close the gaps, while still allowing yourself to remove the cover easily
to get at the plants.

Hope something in here helps, though.


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