November 4, 2025 • 29 mins
If your forecast is flirting with frost and you still have all those lovely greens and root veggies out there, don’t panic, prepare.
Today on Just Grow Something we’re talking row cover and low tunnels: what to buy, how to set up fast, how to vent so you don’t cook your greens, and exactly which fabrics and plastics can squeeze out one more month of salads, herbs, and even late summer crops like beans or peas.
We’ll talk about using fabric covers versus when to use plastic, floating row covers versus building a low tunnel, venting, anchoring, avoiding disease and more. By the end you’ll even have an emergency plan in place if you get a sudden frost warning you weren’t quite prepared for. Let’s dig in!
Resources:
Landscape fabric staples: https://amzn.to/47ogCKW
Frost Cloth: https://amzn.to/47zA5a7
Plastic row covers: https://amzn.to/3WCpSF2
Get my weekly newsletter here: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/news
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Normally at this time of the year I am neck deep in fall
salad greens and I'm preparing carrots and beets for long term
storage in the soil. But this year I didn't do a fall
garden. That was a very last minute
decision on my part and I am honestly kind of regretting it
right now. We just now had our first true
(00:22):
frost. We skirted with those
temperatures like midweek last week, but the last of my summer
tomatoes and Peppers were still hanging on out there, and this
would usually be my sign to cover up my sensitive greens and
hunker everything down for at least another month of fall
gardening. If your forecast is flirting
(00:45):
with frost and you do still haveall of those lovely greens and
root veggies out there, or maybeyour first frost has hit but
everything still looks great, don't panic.
Be prepared. Today I'll just grow something.
We're talking row cover and low tunnels.
What to buy, how to get it set up fast, how to vent it so you
(01:06):
don't cook those greens, and exactly which fabrics and
plastics can squeeze out. Like one more month of salads
and herbs and even some late summer crops like beans or peas.
We'll talk about using fabric versus plastic, floating row
covers versus things like building a low tunnel, how to
(01:27):
vent them, how to anchor, and how to avoid diseases.
By the end, you'll have an emergency plan in place, even if
you get a sudden frost warning that you weren't quite prepared
for. Let's dig in.
Hey, I'm Karen and what started as a small backyard garden 20
years ago turned into a lifelongpassion for growing food.
Now as a market farmer and horticulturist, I want to help
(01:49):
you do the same. On this podcast, I am your
friend in the garden teaching evidence based techniques to
help you grow your favorites andbuild confidence in your own
garden. Space, so grab your.
Garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to just
grow something. So when we hear about season
extension, sometimes we might immediately think, oh, a
(02:11):
greenhouse or a high tunnel of some sort.
But season extension really is just about creating a friendlier
microclimate for the crops that are out in our gardens.
We want to block the wind, we want to bump the temperatures up
a few degrees, and we want to moderate those sort of
temperature swings back and forth between really warm and
(02:34):
really cold. Just that little bit of
modification is enough to keep the tender leaves of a lot of
our leafy greens unfrozen duringa really light frost, and it can
dramatically speed up that cool crop growth on our really sunny
days. It's very simple.
If you cover your crops, it's going to reduce that radiative
(02:56):
heat loss at night and so it's going to help hold some of that
daytime warmth and that's going to buy you extra time at the end
of the season. I think one of the mistakes that
I made early, early on when I was trying to protect some of
these, like late fall crops, wasI grabbed some plastic sheeting
(03:17):
and I threw it over the top. And that was a really bad idea
because where that plastic was in contact with those greens, it
just immediately froze. And so when we think about
season extension, the first thing that we want to think
about is what we call a floatingrow cover.
(03:37):
This is usually spun bonded polyester or polypropylene.
It is permeable to the air and the rain, so it lets the crops
breathe. It also lets the moisture in.
It's really easy to just kind ofthrow out there over top of
whatever crops it is that we're trying to protect.
It's really great for greens andit's very lightweight.
(03:59):
It also gives about a 70 to 85% light transmission in most
instances. So you're getting the air,
you're getting the light, but you're also buffering against
frost because it's going to giveyou about four to 6°F of frost
protection. Now you do have heavier weight
(04:20):
versions of this. They let in less of the light,
so you're looking at maybe 30 to50% light transmission, but they
also give you closer to about 8 to 10°F of protection.
So this is really what you wouldbe using if you wanted to
overwinter your crops. If you want something that does
both, you can buy that lightweight fabric and use that
(04:45):
for just extending the season bya month or so and and giving
yourself that little, you know, frost buffer.
But if there are things out there that you're interested in
extending well into the winter, then just double up on that
lightweight cover. You don't have to go and buy a
separate heavyweight frost cloth.
You can just layer on that lighter weight 1.
(05:07):
So all you're doing is giving itthat extra protection.
When we would want to use plastic is when we're putting it
over top of hoops. So when I talk about a floating
row cover, what I mean is you'retaking that lightweight fabric
and it's literally floating on top of those crops.
There is no, you know, supports that are holding that up.
(05:29):
When we use plastic, we absolutely need to use like
hoops of some sort or some sort of structure that's going to
lift it up off the crops. That is where I made my mistake
the very first time I tried this.
The thing about this plastic is it really does trap in the heat,
(05:49):
but it is also clear plastic. So when you have a very sunny
day, it is going to heat up under there very, very quickly.
So it needs to be vented not just to keep those plants from
overheating, because that absolutely will happen, but also
we're doing this to prevent disease build up.
(06:13):
You know, it can get very, very humid in there.
And even though even if you're in like a dry period of the year
or you're in a dry area, that humidity can build up under
there. Those plants are still
respirating, right? And so all that moisture is
getting trapped in there. And that's a great way for
fungal diseases to start even inthe late fall when it's not
(06:33):
normally going to be something that you would see happening out
in your garden. So this is is definitely
something that you want to vent.It also sheds the rain, so you
might actually have to do a little bit in terms of that
moisture control. You might need to open it
occasionally to let the rain in or you might actually have to
water. What really the plastic is good
(06:55):
for is sort of stacking over topof the fabric.
So if you are using the row covers, oftentimes that's going
to be enough depending on where you are and how long you were
trying to extend the season. But if you really want to keep
things going, then you might usethe a lightweight row cover.
(07:17):
You might put an extra layer on top to make it more of a
heavyweight row cover. And then you might build
yourself a quick low tunnel, cover it with clear plastic,
keep it protected, and then openit when you need it to kind of
breathe. So really you want to use fabric
for sort of routine frost protection where you do need the
(07:37):
airflow and then use the plasticwhen you need like a really
strong night time buffer. But we need to vent it.
And we'll talk about venting specifics here in a minute.
So if you do want to do something like a low tunnel,
what do you do? You know, there are a lot of
different materials out there that you can buy that are going
to allow you to elevate that plastic up off of the ground or
(08:02):
up off of the the crops themselves.
You know, conduit or wire hoops or PVC are all really accessible
things that you can use and often, and these are reusable.
So it's the type of thing where you know you can get PVC pipe
and you can heat it up. If you build yourself, you know
(08:25):
something where it's going to give you the curve that you want
depending on how tall you want these, you just sort of heat up
that PVC a little bit and bend it to the shape where you want
and then you can just jam it right down into the ground.
You can build as many of these as you need and then you can
pick them up and store them awayduring the warm season when you
don't need them. These are also really good
(08:46):
though if you have heavy insect pest pressure to keep those
hoops out and actually use insect netting over top.
So if you put these in place in your beds and you use, you know,
floating, floating row covers onthe crops and then plastic over
top on these hoops, and then in the summertime you're removing
(09:07):
all of that, but you're replacing it with insect
netting. It's it becomes something that
can stay permanently in your bed.
And in most instances, you know,the PVC is UV resistant too.
But also, you know, wire hoops you can use, you can do wire
with this. You can get really creative
actually with some of these. I tend to like the the ones that
sort of like bend over like an actual hoop, but I have seen
(09:29):
where you can do them almost in a in a square.
I guess it's not really a square.
It's a 3 sided, you know, square.
So it's straight up and down on the sides and straight across to
be able to to put things to top.I just like the curved look.
It's easier to mess with. In terms of the plastic, you
(09:50):
want to look for something that is a 4 to 6mm UV resistant Poly
cover. If you do a search and look for,
you know, you row cover or you search for like greenhouse
plastic, it essentially is a greenhouse plastic, but you're
(10:11):
looking at something that's onlygoing to be about 10 to 15 feet
wide versus what you would use on a greenhouse.
That's like, you know, a 20 footwide or a 40 foot wide
greenhouse. Obviously you don't need that
much plastic, right? Sometimes if you don't need this
to last for an extended period of time, you can use things like
the clear plastic paint covers. I'm not sure if that's, that's
(10:34):
not what they're called. They're they're protectors that
you put down when you're painting the walls, right?
You're covering your furniture or the floor with it.
That can be used in the short term if it's the only thing that
you have available to you. So any kind of clear plastic,
preferably something that is UV resistant if you're going to use
this for a long period of time. And then you need something to
(10:56):
anchor that plastic. And you're also going to need
something to clip the plastic tothe to the hoops and also for
clamping down on the ends. So in terms of anchors, these
could be sandbags, they could beboards that are weighed down,
they could be bricks. You can you can berm up the
(11:17):
soil. That also helps to hold this
plastic down. You can clip the plastic to your
hoops, which is kind of my preferred way to do it because I
can clip it down at the bottom. It keeps it all in place.
It also makes it easy for me to be able to open it to vent it.
That way I'm not having to uncover like soil berms or
something to be able to lift this plastic up on the side.
(11:39):
You do want to be able to clamp it down on the ends so that you
can close up those ends for airflow.
I mean, so you don't want the cold air coming in there and be
able to open it back up again. So then when you're putting
these together, the first thing that you want to do is you want
to do the fabric first. You want to put that down on top
of your crops. Those you also do need to
(12:00):
somehow weigh down. I like to use fabric staples,
landscape fabric staples. They're super easy just to plop
down in the soil and to pull back up when you're not needing
them if you need to undrape thatfabric.
But again, you can also do this with soil.
You can put boards on the edge, you can use sandbags, whatever,
(12:21):
especially depending on how windy your area is so that it's
not going to blow these covers off.
And then when you have colder snaps, you want to put the hoops
in place. You want to add the clear
plastic over top of the fabric and then secure it at the edges
with either your weights or yourclips and then close up during
at the ends, right. But we, we mentioned already
(12:42):
that these covers don't just keep your crops warm.
They also increase humidity. And that is a lovely gift for
our greens because most of our greens really do like those more
humid conditions. But without air exchange, you
can get condensation in there. Mildew can start to form and
(13:03):
then also you have the possibility of overheating on
those sunny days. So if you're just using fabric,
and I failed to mention too, if you're using fabric, you don't
necessarily have to have it as afloating row cover directly on
your crops. If you want to put the fabric on
those hoops, you can absolutely do that too.
(13:24):
So this makes it to where it's not in contact, it's not
weighing down, especially if youget that frost, you know, you
know, frost will gather on top of the fabric and sort of weigh
down on the plants that you're trying to protect.
So if you put that, that fabric over top, then that is going to
help. I, I like to have it in contact
(13:44):
because for me it seems like it does a better job of sort of
breaking up what would happen onthe surface of the plants.
That might just be mental in my head, I don't know.
So it's perfectly acceptable to just put these directly onto
those hoops. And then if you need additional
protection, you can put the plastic directly over top of it.
If you're just using fabric, youreally don't generally need to
(14:06):
do any kind of venting. They should do just fine.
They should be breathable enoughthat you don't have to worry
about it. If it gets really, really warm,
then you might just kind of liftup a corner and see if the
leaves are feeling damp, if it feels really warm under there.
If you are using a heavyweight fabric, this is more likely to
(14:27):
happen because again, it's goingto be thicker, it's not going to
vent as well. So you absolutely can uncover
these things during the day and then cover them back up.
But again, at night, if you've got the plastic over top, then
you definitely want to, you know, at least crack the end of
those rows or at least or lift 1long edge up by a few inches
(14:51):
because we don't want the temperatures underneath there
pushing past about 70°F for those cool weather crops.
And then you just have to go back out there and make sure
that you're covering that back up again before the sun starts
to go down. So this regular venting is going
to keep the leaves dry. It's going to reduce that foliar
disease pressure. Really what this is determined
by is what time of the year it is right now in my garden.
(15:16):
If I were doing this, I likely wouldn't have to have the
plastic on at all. It's not cold enough yet.
We've only just now seen our first frost and you know, maybe
a freeze. I think it got down to 30
Fahrenheit here last night. So a simple floating Rd. cover
would be just fine. And then over the next week it's
going to be 70° again during theday.
(15:37):
So I would actually go back out there and uncover all of those
plants and just leave them uncovered until the next time I
saw that it was starting to get back down closer to frost or
freeze and then cover it back upagain.
As we get into the season, maybemid November, late November,
then it might be time to say, OK, now I have to leave that
(16:00):
floating row cover on all the time and then keep an eye out
for the days when it's going to be really warm and just go out
and uncover them just for the day if I need to.
And then once we start getting into maybe mid-december, it
might be time to say, OK, now it's time to put the plastic
over top of everything and just make sure that I'm going out
(16:21):
there and venting them on the days where it really does get
warm. Again, this all depends on your
garden, how cold it already is in your area.
If you are one of my more northern gardeners here in the
Northern Hemisphere, and it's already, you know, well below,
you know, 50° during the day as you're high, maybe even 40°,
(16:41):
then, yeah, you're probably going to want to leave those
frost clothes on all the time. But if you're one of my more
southern gardeners, you know, ifyou're just just South of me,
like in Arkansas, you likely aren't even worrying about this
yet. So you just kind of have to play
it by ear. And the more you do this, more
frequently that you're doing this, you know, the more
experience you get of how to manage this, not just in terms
of when it needs to be covered, but also when it needs to be
(17:04):
uncovered. OK, so again, how much
protection can you expect from these things?
If you are using a light, very, very light fabric, you might
only get like 2 to 4° of a buffer.
A more medium weight 1 is going to be about four to six degrees.
We're talking Fahrenheit here. And then a really heavy covered
one could be 6 to 10°F. But remember, the heavier it is,
(17:26):
the more that light is being reduced.
Now, for some of these crops, it's going to be OK if you are
overwintering things like kale or spinach that do just fine out
there in even really heavy frosts and really are going to
just get to maturity and sort ofsit there all winter.
(17:46):
Because none of these things areactively going to grow in most
areas because there's just not enough hours of daylight.
But it's going to sit there in amature state and you're just
trying to protect it while you harvest it and then allow it to
bump back up in the spring. So you may not necessarily need,
you know, this, this real heavy,heavy cover on all of these
(18:07):
things, but you also may not necessarily need that light
either. If it's just kind of sitting in
stasis and it's not growing, keeping that heavy cover on
there is going to reduce the light, but it's not really going
to affect the plant very much. OK.
A lot of these real cover, you know, setups are going to keep
those crops pretty happy down toabout 24 to 28°F without much of
(18:31):
a problem. And then once we start to get
down below that, that's when we want to add that plastic layer
over top of the fabric to keep it protected for, you know,
colder temperatures. So which greens maybe can be
just fabric by itself and then which things might be, you know,
more conducive to using that plastic.
(18:51):
Lettuce is fine with just the cover, the fabric cover until we
really start to get down into, you know, like the upper 20s
Fahrenheit. And then we might need to give
it some extra. Same with arugula, but our
spinach and our kale, Those types of hardier greens are
(19:11):
really just going to be super happy with just having the
fabric cover alone pretty much through the entire winter if
you're in an area like mine. I am zone 6B so our average
coldest temperatures are usuallyI think around -15 Fahrenheit.
And I have had spinach and kale do just fine out there with a
very light frost cloth and they have survived those temperatures
(19:35):
with no problem. Parsley also, by the way, does
pretty well with just a light tomedium fabric being plenty
protection up into like the high20s Fahrenheit.
So we had that that freeze and then I went out and immediately
harvested the flat leaf parsley out of my garden to make a
really good chimichurri last night.
So parsley is usually pretty Hardy with that too.
(19:58):
The things also that are in the soil, so your root crops like
carrots and and beets and parsnips and and turnips,
they're really not going to needa whole lot of protection if
you're kind of keeping them out in the garden to sort of store
in in place basically. And we'll talk a little bit more
about that next week or the weekafter.
(20:21):
But you know, you if you're wanting to harvest the greens
and stuff off of those, those the beet tops or, or off of the
turnips, or if you're just trying to keep them from being
super damaged, then yeah, you can just throw some fabric over
top of them and and they'll be fine.
If you're trying to keep them out there sort of storing in
place for much longer beyond when the ground starts to really
(20:42):
freeze, then you might be addinga really heavy layer of straw
and then adding some frost protection in terms of a fabric
row cover and then adding the plastic over top.
It's not really necessary though, if you plan to
eventually harvest those before the ground freezes solid.
Your young brassica. Same thing if you're trying to
squeeze like late beans or peas or anything else kind of across
(21:06):
the finish line, like it was a really late crop and and you
know, you just try to get it to where it matures so you can get
that last harvest in. You might also consider that
plastic over fabric technique when the night start to get
really cold because those will not handle a really hard freeze.
So those double covers are goingto do better for you and then of
(21:27):
course those double covers are also going to help carry the
more Hardy, you know, greens through the entire winter in a
lot of climates. Obviously, if we have, you know,
crops that are, are fruiting, then you know, if like if you
have late tomatoes out there or something that you're really
trying to protect, which I have done, I have done, you know,
(21:47):
tomatoes that have been out there really, really late and I
have covered them with the frostcloth and then I have done a
plastic sheet as well. You just have to remember you
also still need pollinators out there, so you'd have to uncover
them. But at that stage of the game,
you know, we're not worried about pollination.
We're just trying to get them tofinish.
So it's really not something that we have to worry about.
In my area. If you are an area where you get
(22:09):
dipped out of the cold and then you have weeks to continue, you
know, working on some of these crops, then maybe you do need to
worry about pollinators. And that's fine.
You just have to remember to uncover that stuff.
Usually you want to use your average first frost date as like
a planning tool, keeping in mindthat most of those dates are
(22:29):
only about 30% accurate. But this is when you should
start getting your stuff sort ofprepared right?
You know, if you start to see things in the forecast that are
dipping you down into, you know,40°F or so, you're like, OK,
there might be an idea that maybe some things are on the way
and it's time to start gatheringall of these supplies.
(22:50):
If you wait until you start to see forecasted numbers in the
overnights that are in the 30s, then it's like, uh oh, you know,
what do we do? Well, if you kind of have, you
know, an emergency case of, oh gosh, we're going to get a frost
and I am not ready for this. The first thing is to water
(23:11):
earlier in the day. And the reason we do this is
because we want the soil to release that heat overnight.
So if the soil is damp, it has been watered and it's going to
harness a lot of those those rays from the sun and it's going
to hold on to that heat. So then as the sun goes down and
it starts to cool off, it's going to release that heat back
(23:33):
out again. There is also something to be
said for the plants being able to take up that water and having
their cells completely plump andfull so that there is less of a
chance of that water freezing solid within those cells.
And then, you know, those shardsof ice poking out and breaking
those cells. That's what happens that we
know. We get that, that foliage that
(23:54):
starts to be destroyed. So the more plump those cells
are with water, the better off they are going to be.
It's going to be easier for themto resist the frost at that
point. You want to drape fabric by
about late afternoon. So if you haven't gotten frost
cloth, what can you use? Just about any fabric is going
to do the job for you. It's not something you're going
(24:17):
to leave on long term because you know, a fabric tablecloth or
you know, an old bed sheet is not going to have the same
breathability as some of these, you know, actual frostcloths
are. But it's going to help protect
from frost. So absolutely you can.
I have used fabric shower curtains and just grabbed them
(24:38):
and thrown them and draped them over top of plants when I got
caught off guard by a frost coming.
OK. Just make sure that it's
weighted down so you don't have a wind come through and knock
them off. If those temperatures look like
they're going to be below like 28°F, well then you might want
to do a couple of layers of fabric.
And then if you do have something that's plastic you can
(24:59):
put over top of those, then thatis going to help get you through
until you can actually get the proper supplies and be prepared
for your next frosty vents. OK, so some pitfalls that we
might sometimes see with this. If you forget to vent the
plastic on the sunny days, you likely are going to see some
(25:21):
very wilted greens. Just make sure that you're
cracking the ends or you're lifting up the side and then
button it back up again before dusk hits.
These fabric row covers should float OK.
That's why it's called a floating row cover.
It shouldn't be mashing down thecrops.
So once these leaves, you know, start to get really tall or the
(25:42):
canopy of the plant starts to get tall, then maybe you want to
go ahead and put up those supports so that they're not
laying directly on the plants. Also, don't skimp on those
weights or those anchors. Making sure that stuff is is
staying in place is going to prevent wind damage.
It's also going to prevent the cold airs from leaking in.
(26:03):
So, you know, again, boards or sandbags are perfect for this.
If you're using fabric, I love those landscape fabric staples.
They're super easy to work with.But just about anything that you
can do to weigh things down to keep the wind from #1 throwing
those covers off, but also sneaking in underneath and wind
damaging those plants. And then, you know, even with
(26:24):
protection, again, the growth isgoing to slow on these plants
because the daylight is dropping, especially once that
day length drops under 10 hours per day.
So you just kind of have to planaccordingly.
Understand that you are extending the season at this
point. You're not actually creating a
whole new season. So these are plants that are
(26:45):
going to be harvested sparingly or you've gotten them to mature
state where you can kind of harvest off of them until
they're down to a very, very small size.
And then you leave them be and wait for them to come back up
again and, you know, start theirgrowth again in the spring.
For greens, you really can just leave these covers on weeks to
(27:07):
even months with just occasionally lifting them up to
harvest and and check for moisture depending on where it
is that you're that you're living.
So anything, again, any breathable fabric is going to
buy you a few degrees. But if you can upgrade to like a
true row cover, they are definitely more durable and you
get more light transmission. So that's going to help to keep
(27:28):
the plants healthier. Just remember not to do this too
early so you know, if in your area you aren't even really
seeing a ton of cool air or youryou haven't even seen your first
frost yet, then just wait to do this OK?
Because especially if you plan on using plastic, it is very
(27:49):
easy to overheat those things ifyou start this too early in the
season. Again, this is going to take
some practice. It's going to take some
experience before you really learn when it's a good time to
go ahead and start adding these things, how long they can be out
there for, when you need to ventthem, when not.
And it sounds like it's a lot ofeffort, but it really isn't.
If you just go out there once a day and you kind of check on
(28:11):
things at the same time that you're planning on harvesting
greens and stuff for, you know, your salads for dinner, then you
get used to just kind of going, oh, OK, yeah, it needs to be
vented. Or, you know, if it's super
sunny out, maybe something needsto happen.
So I hope that this kind of encourages you to continue with
the Fall Garden. Hang on to the last of what's
(28:31):
out there. You don't have regrets like I do
right now that I don't have any salad greens out there that I
can be going out and picking because I wouldn't mind being
out there and covering things right now and keeping them
vented. So that's it.
You just bought yourself a wholeother month of of harvesting off
of these leafy greens and hopefully that will give you a
(28:52):
sense of satisfaction that I am not getting right now.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
Normally at this time of the year I am neck deep in fall
salad greens and I'm preparing carrots and beets for long term
storage in the soil. But this year I didn't do a fall
garden. That was a very last minute
decision on my part and I am honestly kind of regretting it
right now. We just now had our first true
(00:22):
frost. We skirted with those
temperatures like midweek last week, but the last of my summer
tomatoes and Peppers were still hanging on out there, and this
would usually be my sign to cover up my sensitive greens and
hunker everything down for at least another month of fall
gardening. If your forecast is flirting
(00:45):
with frost and you do still haveall of those lovely greens and
root veggies out there, or maybeyour first frost has hit but
everything still looks great, don't panic.
Be prepared. Today I'll just grow something.
We're talking row cover and low tunnels.
What to buy, how to get it set up fast, how to vent it so you
(01:06):
don't cook those greens, and exactly which fabrics and
plastics can squeeze out. Like one more month of salads
and herbs and even some late summer crops like beans or peas.
We'll talk about using fabric versus plastic, floating row
covers versus things like building a low tunnel, how to
(01:27):
vent them, how to anchor, and how to avoid diseases.
By the end, you'll have an emergency plan in place, even if
you get a sudden frost warning that you weren't quite prepared
for. Let's dig in.
Hey, I'm Karen and what started as a small backyard garden 20
years ago turned into a lifelongpassion for growing food.
Now as a market farmer and horticulturist, I want to help
(01:49):
you do the same. On this podcast, I am your
friend in the garden teaching evidence based techniques to
help you grow your favorites andbuild confidence in your own
garden. Space, so grab your.
Garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to just
grow something. So when we hear about season
extension, sometimes we might immediately think, oh, a
(02:11):
greenhouse or a high tunnel of some sort.
But season extension really is just about creating a friendlier
microclimate for the crops that are out in our gardens.
We want to block the wind, we want to bump the temperatures up
a few degrees, and we want to moderate those sort of
temperature swings back and forth between really warm and
(02:34):
really cold. Just that little bit of
modification is enough to keep the tender leaves of a lot of
our leafy greens unfrozen duringa really light frost, and it can
dramatically speed up that cool crop growth on our really sunny
days. It's very simple.
If you cover your crops, it's going to reduce that radiative
(02:56):
heat loss at night and so it's going to help hold some of that
daytime warmth and that's going to buy you extra time at the end
of the season. I think one of the mistakes that
I made early, early on when I was trying to protect some of
these, like late fall crops, wasI grabbed some plastic sheeting
(03:17):
and I threw it over the top. And that was a really bad idea
because where that plastic was in contact with those greens, it
just immediately froze. And so when we think about
season extension, the first thing that we want to think
about is what we call a floatingrow cover.
(03:37):
This is usually spun bonded polyester or polypropylene.
It is permeable to the air and the rain, so it lets the crops
breathe. It also lets the moisture in.
It's really easy to just kind ofthrow out there over top of
whatever crops it is that we're trying to protect.
It's really great for greens andit's very lightweight.
(03:59):
It also gives about a 70 to 85% light transmission in most
instances. So you're getting the air,
you're getting the light, but you're also buffering against
frost because it's going to giveyou about four to 6°F of frost
protection. Now you do have heavier weight
(04:20):
versions of this. They let in less of the light,
so you're looking at maybe 30 to50% light transmission, but they
also give you closer to about 8 to 10°F of protection.
So this is really what you wouldbe using if you wanted to
overwinter your crops. If you want something that does
both, you can buy that lightweight fabric and use that
(04:45):
for just extending the season bya month or so and and giving
yourself that little, you know, frost buffer.
But if there are things out there that you're interested in
extending well into the winter, then just double up on that
lightweight cover. You don't have to go and buy a
separate heavyweight frost cloth.
You can just layer on that lighter weight 1.
(05:07):
So all you're doing is giving itthat extra protection.
When we would want to use plastic is when we're putting it
over top of hoops. So when I talk about a floating
row cover, what I mean is you'retaking that lightweight fabric
and it's literally floating on top of those crops.
There is no, you know, supports that are holding that up.
(05:29):
When we use plastic, we absolutely need to use like
hoops of some sort or some sort of structure that's going to
lift it up off the crops. That is where I made my mistake
the very first time I tried this.
The thing about this plastic is it really does trap in the heat,
(05:49):
but it is also clear plastic. So when you have a very sunny
day, it is going to heat up under there very, very quickly.
So it needs to be vented not just to keep those plants from
overheating, because that absolutely will happen, but also
we're doing this to prevent disease build up.
(06:13):
You know, it can get very, very humid in there.
And even though even if you're in like a dry period of the year
or you're in a dry area, that humidity can build up under
there. Those plants are still
respirating, right? And so all that moisture is
getting trapped in there. And that's a great way for
fungal diseases to start even inthe late fall when it's not
(06:33):
normally going to be something that you would see happening out
in your garden. So this is is definitely
something that you want to vent.It also sheds the rain, so you
might actually have to do a little bit in terms of that
moisture control. You might need to open it
occasionally to let the rain in or you might actually have to
water. What really the plastic is good
(06:55):
for is sort of stacking over topof the fabric.
So if you are using the row covers, oftentimes that's going
to be enough depending on where you are and how long you were
trying to extend the season. But if you really want to keep
things going, then you might usethe a lightweight row cover.
(07:17):
You might put an extra layer on top to make it more of a
heavyweight row cover. And then you might build
yourself a quick low tunnel, cover it with clear plastic,
keep it protected, and then openit when you need it to kind of
breathe. So really you want to use fabric
for sort of routine frost protection where you do need the
(07:37):
airflow and then use the plasticwhen you need like a really
strong night time buffer. But we need to vent it.
And we'll talk about venting specifics here in a minute.
So if you do want to do something like a low tunnel,
what do you do? You know, there are a lot of
different materials out there that you can buy that are going
to allow you to elevate that plastic up off of the ground or
(08:02):
up off of the the crops themselves.
You know, conduit or wire hoops or PVC are all really accessible
things that you can use and often, and these are reusable.
So it's the type of thing where you know you can get PVC pipe
and you can heat it up. If you build yourself, you know
(08:25):
something where it's going to give you the curve that you want
depending on how tall you want these, you just sort of heat up
that PVC a little bit and bend it to the shape where you want
and then you can just jam it right down into the ground.
You can build as many of these as you need and then you can
pick them up and store them awayduring the warm season when you
don't need them. These are also really good
(08:46):
though if you have heavy insect pest pressure to keep those
hoops out and actually use insect netting over top.
So if you put these in place in your beds and you use, you know,
floating, floating row covers onthe crops and then plastic over
top on these hoops, and then in the summertime you're removing
(09:07):
all of that, but you're replacing it with insect
netting. It's it becomes something that
can stay permanently in your bed.
And in most instances, you know,the PVC is UV resistant too.
But also, you know, wire hoops you can use, you can do wire
with this. You can get really creative
actually with some of these. I tend to like the the ones that
sort of like bend over like an actual hoop, but I have seen
(09:29):
where you can do them almost in a in a square.
I guess it's not really a square.
It's a 3 sided, you know, square.
So it's straight up and down on the sides and straight across to
be able to to put things to top.I just like the curved look.
It's easier to mess with. In terms of the plastic, you
(09:50):
want to look for something that is a 4 to 6mm UV resistant Poly
cover. If you do a search and look for,
you know, you row cover or you search for like greenhouse
plastic, it essentially is a greenhouse plastic, but you're
(10:11):
looking at something that's onlygoing to be about 10 to 15 feet
wide versus what you would use on a greenhouse.
That's like, you know, a 20 footwide or a 40 foot wide
greenhouse. Obviously you don't need that
much plastic, right? Sometimes if you don't need this
to last for an extended period of time, you can use things like
the clear plastic paint covers. I'm not sure if that's, that's
(10:34):
not what they're called. They're they're protectors that
you put down when you're painting the walls, right?
You're covering your furniture or the floor with it.
That can be used in the short term if it's the only thing that
you have available to you. So any kind of clear plastic,
preferably something that is UV resistant if you're going to use
this for a long period of time. And then you need something to
(10:56):
anchor that plastic. And you're also going to need
something to clip the plastic tothe to the hoops and also for
clamping down on the ends. So in terms of anchors, these
could be sandbags, they could beboards that are weighed down,
they could be bricks. You can you can berm up the
(11:17):
soil. That also helps to hold this
plastic down. You can clip the plastic to your
hoops, which is kind of my preferred way to do it because I
can clip it down at the bottom. It keeps it all in place.
It also makes it easy for me to be able to open it to vent it.
That way I'm not having to uncover like soil berms or
something to be able to lift this plastic up on the side.
(11:39):
You do want to be able to clamp it down on the ends so that you
can close up those ends for airflow.
I mean, so you don't want the cold air coming in there and be
able to open it back up again. So then when you're putting
these together, the first thing that you want to do is you want
to do the fabric first. You want to put that down on top
of your crops. Those you also do need to
(12:00):
somehow weigh down. I like to use fabric staples,
landscape fabric staples. They're super easy just to plop
down in the soil and to pull back up when you're not needing
them if you need to undrape thatfabric.
But again, you can also do this with soil.
You can put boards on the edge, you can use sandbags, whatever,
(12:21):
especially depending on how windy your area is so that it's
not going to blow these covers off.
And then when you have colder snaps, you want to put the hoops
in place. You want to add the clear
plastic over top of the fabric and then secure it at the edges
with either your weights or yourclips and then close up during
at the ends, right. But we, we mentioned already
(12:42):
that these covers don't just keep your crops warm.
They also increase humidity. And that is a lovely gift for
our greens because most of our greens really do like those more
humid conditions. But without air exchange, you
can get condensation in there. Mildew can start to form and
(13:03):
then also you have the possibility of overheating on
those sunny days. So if you're just using fabric,
and I failed to mention too, if you're using fabric, you don't
necessarily have to have it as afloating row cover directly on
your crops. If you want to put the fabric on
those hoops, you can absolutely do that too.
(13:24):
So this makes it to where it's not in contact, it's not
weighing down, especially if youget that frost, you know, you
know, frost will gather on top of the fabric and sort of weigh
down on the plants that you're trying to protect.
So if you put that, that fabric over top, then that is going to
help. I, I like to have it in contact
(13:44):
because for me it seems like it does a better job of sort of
breaking up what would happen onthe surface of the plants.
That might just be mental in my head, I don't know.
So it's perfectly acceptable to just put these directly onto
those hoops. And then if you need additional
protection, you can put the plastic directly over top of it.
If you're just using fabric, youreally don't generally need to
(14:06):
do any kind of venting. They should do just fine.
They should be breathable enoughthat you don't have to worry
about it. If it gets really, really warm,
then you might just kind of liftup a corner and see if the
leaves are feeling damp, if it feels really warm under there.
If you are using a heavyweight fabric, this is more likely to
(14:27):
happen because again, it's goingto be thicker, it's not going to
vent as well. So you absolutely can uncover
these things during the day and then cover them back up.
But again, at night, if you've got the plastic over top, then
you definitely want to, you know, at least crack the end of
those rows or at least or lift 1long edge up by a few inches
(14:51):
because we don't want the temperatures underneath there
pushing past about 70°F for those cool weather crops.
And then you just have to go back out there and make sure
that you're covering that back up again before the sun starts
to go down. So this regular venting is going
to keep the leaves dry. It's going to reduce that foliar
disease pressure. Really what this is determined
by is what time of the year it is right now in my garden.
(15:16):
If I were doing this, I likely wouldn't have to have the
plastic on at all. It's not cold enough yet.
We've only just now seen our first frost and you know, maybe
a freeze. I think it got down to 30
Fahrenheit here last night. So a simple floating Rd. cover
would be just fine. And then over the next week it's
going to be 70° again during theday.
(15:37):
So I would actually go back out there and uncover all of those
plants and just leave them uncovered until the next time I
saw that it was starting to get back down closer to frost or
freeze and then cover it back upagain.
As we get into the season, maybemid November, late November,
then it might be time to say, OK, now I have to leave that
(16:00):
floating row cover on all the time and then keep an eye out
for the days when it's going to be really warm and just go out
and uncover them just for the day if I need to.
And then once we start getting into maybe mid-december, it
might be time to say, OK, now it's time to put the plastic
over top of everything and just make sure that I'm going out
(16:21):
there and venting them on the days where it really does get
warm. Again, this all depends on your
garden, how cold it already is in your area.
If you are one of my more northern gardeners here in the
Northern Hemisphere, and it's already, you know, well below,
you know, 50° during the day as you're high, maybe even 40°,
(16:41):
then, yeah, you're probably going to want to leave those
frost clothes on all the time. But if you're one of my more
southern gardeners, you know, ifyou're just just South of me,
like in Arkansas, you likely aren't even worrying about this
yet. So you just kind of have to play
it by ear. And the more you do this, more
frequently that you're doing this, you know, the more
experience you get of how to manage this, not just in terms
of when it needs to be covered, but also when it needs to be
(17:04):
uncovered. OK, so again, how much
protection can you expect from these things?
If you are using a light, very, very light fabric, you might
only get like 2 to 4° of a buffer.
A more medium weight 1 is going to be about four to six degrees.
We're talking Fahrenheit here. And then a really heavy covered
one could be 6 to 10°F. But remember, the heavier it is,
(17:26):
the more that light is being reduced.
Now, for some of these crops, it's going to be OK if you are
overwintering things like kale or spinach that do just fine out
there in even really heavy frosts and really are going to
just get to maturity and sort ofsit there all winter.
(17:46):
Because none of these things areactively going to grow in most
areas because there's just not enough hours of daylight.
But it's going to sit there in amature state and you're just
trying to protect it while you harvest it and then allow it to
bump back up in the spring. So you may not necessarily need,
you know, this, this real heavy,heavy cover on all of these
(18:07):
things, but you also may not necessarily need that light
either. If it's just kind of sitting in
stasis and it's not growing, keeping that heavy cover on
there is going to reduce the light, but it's not really going
to affect the plant very much. OK.
A lot of these real cover, you know, setups are going to keep
those crops pretty happy down toabout 24 to 28°F without much of
(18:31):
a problem. And then once we start to get
down below that, that's when we want to add that plastic layer
over top of the fabric to keep it protected for, you know,
colder temperatures. So which greens maybe can be
just fabric by itself and then which things might be, you know,
more conducive to using that plastic.
(18:51):
Lettuce is fine with just the cover, the fabric cover until we
really start to get down into, you know, like the upper 20s
Fahrenheit. And then we might need to give
it some extra. Same with arugula, but our
spinach and our kale, Those types of hardier greens are
(19:11):
really just going to be super happy with just having the
fabric cover alone pretty much through the entire winter if
you're in an area like mine. I am zone 6B so our average
coldest temperatures are usuallyI think around -15 Fahrenheit.
And I have had spinach and kale do just fine out there with a
very light frost cloth and they have survived those temperatures
(19:35):
with no problem. Parsley also, by the way, does
pretty well with just a light tomedium fabric being plenty
protection up into like the high20s Fahrenheit.
So we had that that freeze and then I went out and immediately
harvested the flat leaf parsley out of my garden to make a
really good chimichurri last night.
So parsley is usually pretty Hardy with that too.
(19:58):
The things also that are in the soil, so your root crops like
carrots and and beets and parsnips and and turnips,
they're really not going to needa whole lot of protection if
you're kind of keeping them out in the garden to sort of store
in in place basically. And we'll talk a little bit more
about that next week or the weekafter.
(20:21):
But you know, you if you're wanting to harvest the greens
and stuff off of those, those the beet tops or, or off of the
turnips, or if you're just trying to keep them from being
super damaged, then yeah, you can just throw some fabric over
top of them and and they'll be fine.
If you're trying to keep them out there sort of storing in
place for much longer beyond when the ground starts to really
(20:42):
freeze, then you might be addinga really heavy layer of straw
and then adding some frost protection in terms of a fabric
row cover and then adding the plastic over top.
It's not really necessary though, if you plan to
eventually harvest those before the ground freezes solid.
Your young brassica. Same thing if you're trying to
squeeze like late beans or peas or anything else kind of across
(21:06):
the finish line, like it was a really late crop and and you
know, you just try to get it to where it matures so you can get
that last harvest in. You might also consider that
plastic over fabric technique when the night start to get
really cold because those will not handle a really hard freeze.
So those double covers are goingto do better for you and then of
(21:27):
course those double covers are also going to help carry the
more Hardy, you know, greens through the entire winter in a
lot of climates. Obviously, if we have, you know,
crops that are, are fruiting, then you know, if like if you
have late tomatoes out there or something that you're really
trying to protect, which I have done, I have done, you know,
(21:47):
tomatoes that have been out there really, really late and I
have covered them with the frostcloth and then I have done a
plastic sheet as well. You just have to remember you
also still need pollinators out there, so you'd have to uncover
them. But at that stage of the game,
you know, we're not worried about pollination.
We're just trying to get them tofinish.
So it's really not something that we have to worry about.
In my area. If you are an area where you get
(22:09):
dipped out of the cold and then you have weeks to continue, you
know, working on some of these crops, then maybe you do need to
worry about pollinators. And that's fine.
You just have to remember to uncover that stuff.
Usually you want to use your average first frost date as like
a planning tool, keeping in mindthat most of those dates are
(22:29):
only about 30% accurate. But this is when you should
start getting your stuff sort ofprepared right?
You know, if you start to see things in the forecast that are
dipping you down into, you know,40°F or so, you're like, OK,
there might be an idea that maybe some things are on the way
and it's time to start gatheringall of these supplies.
(22:50):
If you wait until you start to see forecasted numbers in the
overnights that are in the 30s, then it's like, uh oh, you know,
what do we do? Well, if you kind of have, you
know, an emergency case of, oh gosh, we're going to get a frost
and I am not ready for this. The first thing is to water
(23:11):
earlier in the day. And the reason we do this is
because we want the soil to release that heat overnight.
So if the soil is damp, it has been watered and it's going to
harness a lot of those those rays from the sun and it's going
to hold on to that heat. So then as the sun goes down and
it starts to cool off, it's going to release that heat back
(23:33):
out again. There is also something to be
said for the plants being able to take up that water and having
their cells completely plump andfull so that there is less of a
chance of that water freezing solid within those cells.
And then, you know, those shardsof ice poking out and breaking
those cells. That's what happens that we
know. We get that, that foliage that
(23:54):
starts to be destroyed. So the more plump those cells
are with water, the better off they are going to be.
It's going to be easier for themto resist the frost at that
point. You want to drape fabric by
about late afternoon. So if you haven't gotten frost
cloth, what can you use? Just about any fabric is going
to do the job for you. It's not something you're going
(24:17):
to leave on long term because you know, a fabric tablecloth or
you know, an old bed sheet is not going to have the same
breathability as some of these, you know, actual frostcloths
are. But it's going to help protect
from frost. So absolutely you can.
I have used fabric shower curtains and just grabbed them
(24:38):
and thrown them and draped them over top of plants when I got
caught off guard by a frost coming.
OK. Just make sure that it's
weighted down so you don't have a wind come through and knock
them off. If those temperatures look like
they're going to be below like 28°F, well then you might want
to do a couple of layers of fabric.
And then if you do have something that's plastic you can
(24:59):
put over top of those, then thatis going to help get you through
until you can actually get the proper supplies and be prepared
for your next frosty vents. OK, so some pitfalls that we
might sometimes see with this. If you forget to vent the
plastic on the sunny days, you likely are going to see some
(25:21):
very wilted greens. Just make sure that you're
cracking the ends or you're lifting up the side and then
button it back up again before dusk hits.
These fabric row covers should float OK.
That's why it's called a floating row cover.
It shouldn't be mashing down thecrops.
So once these leaves, you know, start to get really tall or the
(25:42):
canopy of the plant starts to get tall, then maybe you want to
go ahead and put up those supports so that they're not
laying directly on the plants. Also, don't skimp on those
weights or those anchors. Making sure that stuff is is
staying in place is going to prevent wind damage.
It's also going to prevent the cold airs from leaking in.
(26:03):
So, you know, again, boards or sandbags are perfect for this.
If you're using fabric, I love those landscape fabric staples.
They're super easy to work with.But just about anything that you
can do to weigh things down to keep the wind from #1 throwing
those covers off, but also sneaking in underneath and wind
damaging those plants. And then, you know, even with
(26:24):
protection, again, the growth isgoing to slow on these plants
because the daylight is dropping, especially once that
day length drops under 10 hours per day.
So you just kind of have to planaccordingly.
Understand that you are extending the season at this
point. You're not actually creating a
whole new season. So these are plants that are
(26:45):
going to be harvested sparingly or you've gotten them to mature
state where you can kind of harvest off of them until
they're down to a very, very small size.
And then you leave them be and wait for them to come back up
again and, you know, start theirgrowth again in the spring.
For greens, you really can just leave these covers on weeks to
(27:07):
even months with just occasionally lifting them up to
harvest and and check for moisture depending on where it
is that you're that you're living.
So anything, again, any breathable fabric is going to
buy you a few degrees. But if you can upgrade to like a
true row cover, they are definitely more durable and you
get more light transmission. So that's going to help to keep
(27:28):
the plants healthier. Just remember not to do this too
early so you know, if in your area you aren't even really
seeing a ton of cool air or youryou haven't even seen your first
frost yet, then just wait to do this OK?
Because especially if you plan on using plastic, it is very
(27:49):
easy to overheat those things ifyou start this too early in the
season. Again, this is going to take
some practice. It's going to take some
experience before you really learn when it's a good time to
go ahead and start adding these things, how long they can be out
there for, when you need to ventthem, when not.
And it sounds like it's a lot ofeffort, but it really isn't.
If you just go out there once a day and you kind of check on
(28:11):
things at the same time that you're planning on harvesting
greens and stuff for, you know, your salads for dinner, then you
get used to just kind of going, oh, OK, yeah, it needs to be
vented. Or, you know, if it's super
sunny out, maybe something needsto happen.
So I hope that this kind of encourages you to continue with
the Fall Garden. Hang on to the last of what's
(28:31):
out there. You don't have regrets like I do
right now that I don't have any salad greens out there that I
can be going out and picking because I wouldn't mind being
out there and covering things right now and keeping them
vented. So that's it.
You just bought yourself a wholeother month of of harvesting off
of these leafy greens and hopefully that will give you a
(28:52):
sense of satisfaction that I am not getting right now.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
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Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com