What is a Garden Cover-Up?
The term "garden cover-up" is not a fashion statement! Rather, it refers to plastic, mesh, and fabric products available for gardeners that can help extend the garden season and protect plants from pests, including birds and mammals, that eat seeds, seedlings, and plants.
Fabric Covers
A medium-weight white spun fabric cover can simply be spread on top of the plants and held down at the edges with soil, rocks, or pins made for that purpose.
This type of cover is useful in spring when moving seedlings into the garden. It can help plants "harden off" without sunburn and cold damage. It also keeps the wind that sometimes blows through the garden early in the season from damaging these tender plants (and it is easy to throw over plants in the event of an unexpected late frost).
Fabric covers also prevent birds from eating seeds or young seedlings, especially peas and beans, which sometimes have to be replanted if they are not covered.
If you cover the edge of the fabric with soil all the way around, you can keep the rabbits out, but be sure to allow enough room for the plants to grow. You can also use plastic or metal hoops to form tunnels over your plants.
The garden quilt is a heavier fabric that can retain several degrees of heat. This can extend the growing season by allowing you to plant earlier in the spring and later into the fall.
A garden quilt can also protect flats of seedlings outdoors until the last frost, freeing up interior space for additional seed-starting.
Spring weather can be unpredictable. On a really warm day, the covers should be removed to prevent roasting the seedlings. You'll have to use your judgment because if exposed plants are not hardened off, they may suffer sunburn or windburn.
A summer-weight cover is useful for preventing insects and birds from getting into plants such as cabbages and strawberries, as well as for keeping them away from young plants. It doesn't stunt the plants because it is so light that it merely "floats" on top of them.
Medium-weight and garden quilt fabrics should be set aside over the summer, but they can be used again when the weather gets cool. In this way, tomato and pepper plants may be encouraged to produce for a few weeks more.
Mesh Covers
Another type of cover is a green mesh-type cover. This one is used a bit differently.
Wood-enclosed raised beds can be fitted with holes or tubing straps to accommodate 6-ft. lengths of white plastic pipe. The pipe can be gently arced across the beds to form hoops.
Green mesh material is spread over the top to form a tunnel. This is particularly good for growing lettuces. They last longer before bolting because the mesh netting shades them just enough.
The mesh tunnel is also a great place to keep cuttings while they are rooting, because they do get some sun, but they don't dry out as fast.
Plastic Covers
Plastic covers can also be helpful in some instances. For example, you can use a clear plastic film for cold-frame lids. It is very light-weight and inexpensive. When the weather warms up, remove it and use the cold-frame beds for planting all summer long.
Plastic greenhouse material can also be used to con-struct an unheated greenhouse, allowing you to over-winter potted perennials and to continue growing cold weather crops well into winter.
Garden cover-ups can be a big help in the garden, especially when it comes to growing vegetables. By keeping pests out and extending the gardening sea-son, you will be able to harvest more, for a longer period of time.
