The No-spray Way to Protect Plants

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You can support row covers with stakes as long as the tops are smooth rather than jagged. Rebar or plastic-pipe stakes topped with rounded end caps work well, or you can use “living stakes.” In spring, dot the bed with a few corn or sunflower seedlings, and let them lift the row cover as they grow.

Tailoring Tips

When you run into situations where your row covers’ lengths or widths come up short, you can overlap pieces (making it easy to peek inside through the slit), or you can attach pieces using an ordinary paper stapler or a needle and thread. In the interest of research, I tested the strength of seams made with basting stitches on a sewing machine, hand stitches and staples placed 2 inches apart. After abusing the samples in a bucket of muddy water and then setting them in the sun for a few days, the stapled seams showed fewer gaps and less tearing than the sewn ones. For quick jobs, simply attaching pieces of row cover together with spring-type clothespins will do.

After the row cover is on the bed, you may still need to weight the bamboo poles with bricks, heavy stones, or sandbags — a great reuse for gallon-size freezer or food storage bags. When loaded with 10 cups of sand and 3 cups of water, these sandbags weigh about 8 pounds, and instantly mold themselves to the spot where you put them, or use wire staples to hold down the poles on each end of the cover.

Under very windy conditions, it’s a good idea to further secure row covers by clamping them onto their support hoops. If you use 9-gauge wire hoops, buy a few feet of three-eighths-inch vinyl tubing, and use kitchen shears or wire snips to cut it into 2-inch pieces. Then slit each piece open lengthwise, and pop them onto the hoops after the row cover is installed. If you use flexible pipe as support hoops, make clamps from pipe of a slightly larger diameter than the pipe used for the hoops, using a utility knife to make sure, clean cuts.

Making them Last

Clean row covers last longer, because soil particles that become wedged in the fibers have an abrasive effect. Promptly gathering and storing row covers between uses will go a long way toward keeping them reasonably clean, as will using poles or weights to hold the edges rather than burying them beneath soil or mulch. Should a piece get very dirty, hang it on a clothesline and hose it down. Allow it to dry completely before storing it (I store mine in plastic dry cleaning bags). If you have several pieces, use a laundry marker to label a corner of each one with its size and type, or label the bags in which you store them. Once row covers are crumpled on a shelf, they all look alike.

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