Temporary Garden Shades

The vege garden faces north and most veg get a full sun for about 8-10 hours during the height of summer. It may be a tad bit too much for young seedlings trying to survive their first weeks. The climbing beans and tomato certainly didn’t take too well to the heat and soon had pretty bad scorched and dried bits dangling off their branches.

So there was a need to provide the necessary shade to cut down the hours of exposure yet they must be movable/detachable once the cooler months come.

A simple screen was made with a light polyester fabric and sewn with velcro tabs on one side. These tabs are used to secure to the desired level on the trellis. The other side has a stick running through its seam, and its ends are held down by yarn and U-shaped weedmat pegs. This effectively cuts the exposure to about 4-5 hours for the malabar spinach, climbing beans and a couple of broccoli.

The tomato plant was not doing too well either from the sun, so a separate screen was made using leftover pvc conduits and the same lightweight fabric. The conduit is secured onto the fence but it also allows some degree of movement for adjustments to the direction of the sun. The screen is secured to the bed with yarn and weedmat pegs (1 on each end).

Leave a Reply