North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Rondi <nafex@mokalive.com>]

Donna.

I have a a PVC pipe  (13 X 20) already that I plan on putting over the 
berries, but I have another patch that I now plan to do what you are 
suggesting to see what the difference will be.  Thank for the idea.

Rondi
On Nov 10, 2006, at 11:00 AM, nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] high tunnels and fruit production
> To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <004c01c70430$b5aeedb0$67f7b40c@YOUR20FE224C19>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Actually, you can do something like this a lot cheaper if you will 
> simply cover your plants with old sheer curtains.  Nylon is best but 
> some of the whiter heavier weight fabrics will keep a bit more of the 
> cold off them.  You don't need the tunnel supports at all, just 
> something to hold the edges down in the wind.  I do this for my 
> greens, adding an old sheet when it gets really cold, and I have 
> greens all winter.  I cover strawberry plants with sheets to keep off 
> a late frost, but I can certainly see that if I had them covered with 
> curtains all spring, they'd start growing and blooming sooner.  The 
> really nice thing about using fabric rather than plastic is that you 
> don't get as much heat buildup to increase evaporation, and the rain 
> falls right through the fabric, so there is really no need for 
> irrigation.  Of course, you can buy Reemay for this purpose, but I 
> found that one little cat playfight in the the Reemay can be the end 
> of it.  Used curtains come cheap and last for
>  years.     Donna
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic.

Goethe