[z_willus_d]

Hi,

Here are some pics of my shading efforts, and what I've arrived at for this season. In our first pic, we see the very time consuming, expensive, and flimsy PVC option for my patio. This was all to simply shade my corn and cucs in their EarthTainers. It seems like the corn pollen is want to dry up and fizzle/denature in our super hot temps, so I'm hoping the shade helps with this problem.

Pics 35-38 show a better solution, which I arrived at with the help of Anne. I purchased a 10-amp rotational hammer from Harbor Freight (very cheap yet powerful tool) that was well worth the $70 I paid for it. The 1" 18" long carbide bit I bought for it was almost as much at $50. But even with those costs, this solution was less than the PVC and so far it seems to be a much more sturdy option. It also looks a bit better in my opinion, though I will admit that I could have done a better job in measuring the cloth and lining everything up.

The rest of the pics show what I'm doing for the other beds, where I've just thrown up some shade cloth on the tops and partial sides of the tomato cages. This is the lazy man's solution, and I'll probably move to Anne's configuration for these beds sometime before next season. I found that I (or my help) was walking in the beds to put up the curved PVC pipe and cloth, so it will be easier without the cages and large tomato plants in the way. One thing I don't like about this configuration is I don't have an easy way to take down the shade cloth during the off-season. I think it will have far less effect, since the angle of the sun is so low then, but it still would be better if I could easily remove and add back the shading at will.

-naysen