heritage ranch
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Registered: 05-2009
Location: central colorado rockies
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trying out a new row cover to deter the frost
here is a shot of the row cover i cobbled up today. it is pvc pipe bent in hoops onto rebar pins covered with visquene type plastic sheeting. about 18ft long 4 ft wide. i left the end pretty much open so the plants wouldn't cook during the day (hopefully) i have my temp gauges set up to monitor the temps for a few days to see if it really helps at night. i hope if i can keep it a bit warmer at night then i might actually get some fruit to mature. sofar all the squash have fallen off even after i could tell they had been pollinated. i think it has been the cool nights. thank good ness i wasnt growing tomatoes. i will post the temp data in a few days
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8/18/2009, 4:43 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: trying out a new row cover to deter the frost
That looks like a great tunnel bed! Hope you'll get some nice zucchini and such from it.
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8/18/2009, 6:00 am
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TexasMadness
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Re: trying out a new row cover to deter the frost
Looks great! We have a few months yet to figure out how we are going to handle frost. It's something pretty new to me but the farm gets down to 15F a couple nights during the winter. We have row cover, but we tried to use it as "floating cover" and the wind was too much! So we're headed in a direction like yours. Let us know how it does!
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8/18/2009, 3:53 pm
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heritage ranch
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Re: trying out a new row cover to deter the frost
i ran temps on it last night and didnt really see any improvement. though the day was pretty cloudy so the ground did not build up much heat. i am throwing a straw bale across each end today to see if closing it up helps.
the basic plans for this tunnel are as follows
the cheepest PVC pipe you can get mine was the thin wall 1/2 inch about $4 for a 20ft stick some half inch rebar pins. you can get these from home depot, i dont recall the price. i buy 20ft sticks of rebar from the steel dealer and then cut them to the length i want. i cut the pvc into 3 equal pieces about 6'8" each then i pounded the rebar pins in 2 rows 4ft apart. slip one end of the pvc over a pin and bend it down to the other pin and slip it over it. this gives you the hoop shape. the spacing i tried bot 4.5ft and 3ft. i like the 3ft spacing better. if you look at the picture the right end has 4 hoops 3ft apart and the left end has 3 hoops 4.5ft apart and you can clearly see the plastic is better supported on the right end. the plastic i used is just the heavy 6mil construction "visquene" i buy the 100' roll that is 20ft wide and cut 8ft strips off the roll. this gives me a 20x8' sheet that is fairly easy to work with. this works out to about $1 per linear foot of row cover.
with the sun still very high in the sky this can easily over heat during the day if left closed. the best thing would be to close it up around dusk and reopen in the morning. but i need something i can leave unattended for 2-3 days at a time. down there in winter when the sun is lower on the horizon i dont think it would be much of a problem with over heating.
i'll keep posting with up dates
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8/18/2009, 6:43 pm
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Saijen SilverWolf
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Re: trying out a new row cover to deter the frost
That looks pretty good, heritage.
I hope you can figure out what works best before anything that shouldn't happen, happens.
--- Blessed Be,
~*~ Saijen ~*~
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8/23/2009, 6:39 pm
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