Any tips to get flowers to set in temps over 90F?

[z_willus_d]

Hi DM-

Yeah, I was concerned about the black sopping up all the photons and heating as well. I'm particularly worried about the case where the material is in contact with the plants, which it is in places on most of my setups except Anne's, which is what I need to convert everything to next year.

I ended up with that black shade-cloth after having sticker shock at the prices of the other options out there. I don't think it's the best suited for our gardening needs. It's the wrong color, too heavy, and probably blocks too much sun at 50%. Here's where I got it:
http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...uctId=11227200

Maybe I'll upgrade some day. What did you use for your shading cloth?

--naysen

[Dewayne mater]

I had to do some searching to find where I'd posted the place I purchased mine in the past and ironically, it was a post of yours a couple of years ago! The tag on them says green-tek, however, the place I got them is called http://www.growerssolution.com/

I do have a 50% white shade and believe that is not too much block at all. As for the white/black thing, my get tells me white is cooler, but, I have no proof of that. They cut it in custom sizes and have some pre made cuts as well, which ship faster. The edges are a tough material that holds up well and it has metal grommets every 2 feet or so to attach it. The main one I've got is on at least it's 4th year. It has a couple of small tears where the tops of a tomato cage ripped it in high winds, but, so far, the tears aren't increasing in size. Very pleased with the product.

DM

[aclum]

Hi,

In my post #58 above addressed to Naysen, I mentioned the passive swamp cooler thing I was working on for the veggie garden. I just finished putting together enough of it today to see if it would actually work and, low and behold,
it DOES!

As described before, the system is agribon-15 attached to the chain link fence with clothespins and kept from billowing out and possibly being torn off by the wind with parallel baling twine lines running horizontally on the outside of the agribon. I've got a 1/4" dripline soaker hose fixed to the top of the agribon with clothespins as shown in the photo. The line currently runs to an outlet fitted with a hose end timer.

The agribon, being spun polyester is somewhat water repellant, but with this set-up the whole cloth gets nice and damp with some excess runoff drops (you can see the water dribbles in the photos). It turns out the material is about perfect (at least to my mind) for the purpose (which actually surprised me).

I just hooked up the water on one half of the 30' length of fencing covered with agribon. I suspended remote read thermometers at the same height in the tomato beds about 5' from the fence in the middle of each section and ran the water at a very slow drip. About 20 minutes later (3:30 pm), I read the remote sensor indoors. The section with the "wet wall" was 102.9 and the section with just the dry agribon was 109.2!!!! According to weatherunderground, the "official" outside temp at the time was 93.6 and winds were about 4 mph from the West and NW. After about 45 minutes or so, I checked the temps again and noticed that the wet-dry wall differential was down to about 3 degrees (from about 7), so I went back out the check on things and saw that the hose end timer had shut off so the wet wall was starting to dry out. When I put the water back on, the differential started increasing. So this would seem to confirm that it was the wet wall at work in the temp differences. Will have to do more testing tomorrow.

I'll be adding to the system in the coming days and will let you know how things work out.

On the photos, you'll see a couple of details of the wet wall section (garden hose not part of the system - it's just "on it's way" to another part of the garden ). And there's an overview of things so far from the back patio. The agribon has just enough in the way of shading (10%) to take the edge off the bright sunlight that can sneak in from that side of the garden. The wet part in that photo is the right hand side.

Anne