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Keeping it under wraps

Crop covers can help to extend the season by many weeks both in the autumn and spring. Steve Ott takes a look at some simple tricks to keep your crops cosy

Although most experts agree (finally) that our winters are definitely becoming milder, our crops still need a little help during the coldest months. Besides, most gardeners would like to extend the growing season as much as possible to allow them to get the most from precious crops and crop covers can help you to do just that.
Squeezing the last drop out of the gardening year and ensuring that the quality of your veg is maintained is easier than ever before with new products and versatile materials coming on to the market every year and we take a look at a few of those here. But if you are one of the many who have to watch the pennies or have larger areas to protect from wind and frost, then it is perfectly feasible to make your own crop covers – or rather the supports necessary to keep them safely over your plants, very easily and relatively cheaply.

Perfect protection

All winter crop protection is based around the covering material, which of course must be opaque to allow crops to grow, (albeit slowly), yet thick enough to offer some level of insulation against the cold and wind.
Polythene sheeting is probably the cheapest covering material and comes in a range of thicknesses. It is reasonably easy to work with, freely available and providing that you don’t choose a very thin gauge, should last all winter long – perhaps even two years. The disadvantage is that its insulating properties are quite poor.
The main alternative to this is fleece. This again comes in various thicknesses or weights and for late autumn/winter protection it is wise to choose a heavier material to provide maximum protection.
Some crops of course are perfectly hardy, but may still require some protection from wind and from the pests that may still be lurking on the plot even as the most vicious weather cuts through the rows. Brassica whiteflies, for example, are a common sight on cabbages and their cousins all winter long and greenfly will hang on well into the autumn to emerge again from over wintering eggs as soon as weather allows in the spring.
Crop protection fleece, such as Enviromesh (Agralan), Ecogreen Micromesh (Haxnicks) or Gromax Net (Two Wests & Elliott) can help to keep them clean although the much coarser mesh used offers less protection against the cold.

Laying it on

All of these materials are light enough to allow you to simply lay them over the crop and to secure to the ground with homemade or ready-made ground pegs, bricks, timber or even simply by pushing the edges into the soil with a spade, allowing enough slack for the crops to develop underneath. However, on exposed sites, the wind may cause severe crop damage as it whips the cover against the leaves and vulnerable tall stems of plants such Brussels sprouts or kale. Here some measure of support for the cover is preferable and this can be given in many ways, some cheap and cheerful, others more expensive, but off the peg.

Building a DIY des res

We have tried many simple ways to support crop covers over the years, some of which have been more successful than others. The basic requirements for any good crop cover support are that it should be: n Light n Resilient n Reasonably cheap n Preferably biodegradable/recycled

 

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