Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Protecting Crops from Cold Weather


SFG March 4

Weather in Texas Continues to Be Cold

These lingering cold temperatures may be helping some of my early spring crops, but it is requiring more effort to keep the plants from freezing.  Plastic cover goes on at night and off in the morning.  Back on again at night and off again in the morning.  There have been few nights when I did not have to cover my garden in the past several days.   This past weekend I decided to build a frame from PVC pipe according to Mel’s guidelines.   It was simple, affordable and took very little time.  

For the three current squares that I have planted, we purchased six ½ inch PVC pipe 10 foot in length. We slipped the PVC pipe into opposite corners of each 4x4 square and attached them at the top where they crossed with a zip tie.  It was that simple.   I thought I had enough plastic to cover all three squares, but I ran a wee bit short.   One of the squares is only partially planted so we were able to cover the planted squares with what was left of my plastic.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 
We are using bricks, rocks, and 2x6 wood scraps
to keep the plastic from blowing in the wind



Hopefully we will see warmer night temperatures soon, but this week’s forecast doesn’t seem promising.  

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