home made shade cloth anyone?
- Thread starter sht4luck
- Start date
bills
Deeply Rooted
I do't know how the prices compare, but there are some very inexpensive landscape cloths available. Some of the thinner, cheaper ones do let in some light, and will allow water to penetrate. I put some around one of my squash plants this season, and the darn chick weed is still growing vigorously under it.
Why not try old sheets or go get some cheap fabric, put some sticks or wood in the ground and tie your cloth to it, that way it is above the ground and water and air can flow easily or put your 4 stick in the ground but 2 higher than the other 2 and do the same. Hope this makes sense.
If you have a Harbor Freight store close by they have some and aren't that expensive. About $4.00 maybe a little higher but not much. I just got a solar shed light there today for $19.00. Most other places wanted $30.00.
patandchickens
Deeply Rooted
Best homemade shade cloth I know involves you take a saw or pair o' loppers to some pine or spruce or cedar trees that you don't like or that you were going to prune or take down anyhow. Prop the boughs up so they shade the plants (afternoon shade is the most important), either sticking them into the ground or propping them up w/additional sticks. Make sure it is sturdy enough that they won't blow down in a storm and smash your plants.
A more convenient-to-handle and long-lasting alternative is to collect windowscreens that people are throwing out or giving away for cheap. Doesn't matter if they have modest holes or rips in them. Poke a coupla holes along one edge, right next to the frame, and wire two together bookwise, then you can stand them up like a tent over the plant(s) in question (obviously this is for small to medium size plants, not your pole beans <g>). If that's not enough shade you can wrap the afternoon side of the frame with cheesecloth or additional scrap windowscreen material. You may have to weight the upwind bottom edges with bricks or peg them in w/tentpegs if you're in a windy site.
(edited to add: this reminds me of some homemade wind-screens I've made in past years to shelter new transplants from our really bad freezing spring winds. You could make bigger ones for shade. It is fairly time consuming and will not last forever, but basically free. For each wind/shade frame you're going to make, you need STRAIGHT sticks/branches/stakes of the appropriate horizontal length. You will use pairs of them to sandwich around a whole lot of smaller sticks or long grass. If you are using sticks to fill in and make the shade, they can be 2-3' apart (so you may only have two top ones and two bottom ones, per frame). Or you can cut some long meadow/ditch type grass to fill in, but then you need additional sticks/branches/stakes to lash together into a reasonably rigid frame, and as with the above plan these have to be doubled for each frame for purposes of sandwiching. So, you lay down one set of the sticks on the ground, then lay an extremely large amount <g> of sticks or long grass on them, in a flat layer having whatever density you want to cut the wind or make dappled shade. Then you put down the other set of sticks on top of them. Lash the ends of the pairs together with scrap string (I use old baling twine), and then coarsely 'sew' along the length of each pair of long sticks, wrapping around and around both of them at once in a long spiral so that the sticks or grass used for shade are held reasonably securely. Once it's done, you can stake it into the ground where you want it, at an angle, using more sticks. Man, that was a lousy explanation, sorry - but it is really pretty obvious I think if you just concentrate on making a tightly-bound sandwich of vertical filler between a few horizontal sticks
Commercial shadecloth is not that expensive, though. I believe I paid $2 per linear foot for some 12' wide stuff last year. (That is, for $18 you would get a 6x12' piece). And that's in Canada, where most things like this are more expensive than in the states.
Good luck,
Pat
A more convenient-to-handle and long-lasting alternative is to collect windowscreens that people are throwing out or giving away for cheap. Doesn't matter if they have modest holes or rips in them. Poke a coupla holes along one edge, right next to the frame, and wire two together bookwise, then you can stand them up like a tent over the plant(s) in question (obviously this is for small to medium size plants, not your pole beans <g>). If that's not enough shade you can wrap the afternoon side of the frame with cheesecloth or additional scrap windowscreen material. You may have to weight the upwind bottom edges with bricks or peg them in w/tentpegs if you're in a windy site.
(edited to add: this reminds me of some homemade wind-screens I've made in past years to shelter new transplants from our really bad freezing spring winds. You could make bigger ones for shade. It is fairly time consuming and will not last forever, but basically free. For each wind/shade frame you're going to make, you need STRAIGHT sticks/branches/stakes of the appropriate horizontal length. You will use pairs of them to sandwich around a whole lot of smaller sticks or long grass. If you are using sticks to fill in and make the shade, they can be 2-3' apart (so you may only have two top ones and two bottom ones, per frame). Or you can cut some long meadow/ditch type grass to fill in, but then you need additional sticks/branches/stakes to lash together into a reasonably rigid frame, and as with the above plan these have to be doubled for each frame for purposes of sandwiching. So, you lay down one set of the sticks on the ground, then lay an extremely large amount <g> of sticks or long grass on them, in a flat layer having whatever density you want to cut the wind or make dappled shade. Then you put down the other set of sticks on top of them. Lash the ends of the pairs together with scrap string (I use old baling twine), and then coarsely 'sew' along the length of each pair of long sticks, wrapping around and around both of them at once in a long spiral so that the sticks or grass used for shade are held reasonably securely. Once it's done, you can stake it into the ground where you want it, at an angle, using more sticks. Man, that was a lousy explanation, sorry - but it is really pretty obvious I think if you just concentrate on making a tightly-bound sandwich of vertical filler between a few horizontal sticks
Commercial shadecloth is not that expensive, though. I believe I paid $2 per linear foot for some 12' wide stuff last year. (That is, for $18 you would get a 6x12' piece). And that's in Canada, where most things like this are more expensive than in the states.
Good luck,
Pat
Beekissed
Garden Master
Heard of folks using bridal tulle...says its cheaper than real shade cloth. I haven't checked this out, but they also say it lasts longer.
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