Row Covers Will Protect Your Garden Plants From Extreme Weather And Pesky Insects

Row Covers can extend your growing season considerably, protecting your crops from frost damage and driving cold winds. Good quality covers can transmit upto 70 percent of the available light.

Garden covers help to keep heat in whilst keeping those annoying pesky insects out, and at the same time they are a very good windbreak for young growing plants

When laid directly on the soil covers should be given some slack to enable expansion to take place as the plants begin to develop.

As the plants grow the cover will push up, so a little soil should be put around the edges of the cover to keep it in place. Alternatively it can be anchored down with weights or by staples pushed into the ground.

Support hoops can be used for plants as they grow, which is great for larger garden plants such as tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The cover should be pulled tight over the hoops and weighted down to prevent strong winds from getting underneath.

As the temperature begins to rise during the late spring and summer you will need to check your plants to ensure they're not getting too hot.

This is particularly important with regards to cool weather plants, including broccoli and lettuce. You may want to remove the row cover altogether if there are signs of overheating.

Care should be taken when it comes to plants requiring pollination. Many crops like peas, beans, strawberries, pumpkins and squash have to be pollinated in order to produce a harvest, so you will need to remove covers at the appropriate time of the year to allow pollination to take place.

Other self pollinating plants such as tomatoes can be left under cover. But care needs to be taken as the temperature can rise quickly during the summer. If the temperature rises too high plants can become steriles and fruits will not set. Covers will need to be lifted to prevent this happening.