Protect Your Garden From HEAT With SHADE CLOTH For Incredible Results!

In this video, I share how to protect your garden from heat with shade cloth! Shade cloth is my secret weapon for gardening in summer heat and sun. Whether your summers are persistently hot, you’re subject to heat waves or you’re at higher altitude, shade cloth is the best tool to reduce heat stress in your summer garden. Make problems gardening during heat waves a thing of the past! Keep your garden thriving all summer long, even in very hot climates.

Nearly all gardeners can benefit from using shade cloth in the garden. Shade cloth isn’t just for gardeners at low latitudes or high altitudes: gardeners at higher latitudes will benefit, too. Most annual vegetables we grow are understory species, and they suffer when UV index climbs to 8 or higher. This is the cause of most garden diseases and pest infestations: the plants get weak from sun stress, and the insect pests and plant diseases take over. Reducing stress by installing shade cloth overhead will dramatically improve plant health, reduce insect problems, increase harvests, reduce watering needs…it’s the best investment I’ve ever made in my summer garden!

Shade cloth can also be used to stop or slow bolting in cool season crops, making it valuable for use in spring and fall as well, not just during summer!

My DIY Hoop House/Tunnel Builds: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1gY7BoYBGIHTXtdhw3mMeOyMgLPt8pKR&si=rbcE3uIw84RQ3shD

I use the following products* were featured in this video and used in my vegetable garden:
Shade Cloth (Many Sizes): https://amzn.to/4bLbv72
1/2-in PVC Snap Clamps (10 PCS): https://amzn.to/3x19Mvw
1/2-in PVC Snap Clamps (20 PCS): https://amzn.to/45ht1gO
1/2-in PVC Snap Clamps (40 PCS): https://amzn.to/4aXJB6y
100-ft Nylon Rope / Clothesline: https://amzn.to/3VxcP84
2-in M5 Carabiner Clips (60 PCS): https://amzn.to/3VzxHvk
Assorted Zip Ties: https://amzn.to/3xaKKtO
Stainless Steel Aircraft Cable: https://amzn.to/3Xb5MD9
Grow Bags (Many Sizes): https://amzn.to/3x4bJXO
Weed Barrier (Many Sizes): https://amzn.to/4dUWVeC
Double Tomato Hooks: https://amzn.to/4aL07qD
Plant Support Clips: https://amzn.to/4aGJrR6
Jobe’s Organic Vegetable Fertilizer (4lbs): https://amzn.to/45YHmh2
Espoma Plant Tone (36lbs): https://amzn.to/3Zgk98f
Jobe’s Bone Meal (4lb): https://amzn.to/3uC5klp
Espoma Bone Meal (10lb): https://amzn.to/4aXpANJ
Alaska Fish Fertilizer (Gallon): https://amzn.to/3XP5EHU
Alaska Fish Fertilizer (Quart): https://amzn.to/3wTE7Ms
Jack’s All Purpose 20-20-20 (1.5lb): https://amzn.to/3MQ4I2A
Jack’s Blossom Booster 10-30-20 (1.5lb): https://amzn.to/3KyPTzg
Jack’s / JR Peters All Purpose 20-20-20 (25lb): https://amzn.to/44DUV58
Jack’s Blossom Booster 10-30-20 (25lb): https://amzn.to/45FIuXh
Full Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introduction
0:53 Why Your Garden NEEDS Shade Cloth
4:39 When To Install Shade Cloth
6:46 How To Install Shade Cloth
8:27 Installing Shade Cloth On A High Tunnel
12:44 Shade Cloth And Wind
14:56 Reducing Irrigation And Controlling Pests
18:25 Adventures With Dale

If you have any questions about how to use shade cloth for summer gardening, want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

*****
VISIT MY AMAZON STOREFRONT FOR PRODUCTS I USE MOST OFTEN IN MY GARDEN*
https://www.amazon.com/shop/themillennialgardener

*****
VISIT MY MERCHANDISE STORE
https://shop.spreadshirt.com/themillennialgardener

*****
SUPPORT MY SECOND CHANNEL!
https://www.youtube.com/c/2MinuteGardenTips

*****
EQUIPMENT I MOST OFTEN USE IN MY GARDEN*:

Southern Ag Liquid Copper Fungicide https://amzn.to/2HTCKRd
Southern Ag Natural Pyrethrin Concentrate https://amzn.to/2UHSNGE
Monterey Organic Spinosad Concentrate https://amzn.to/3qOU8f5
Safer Brand Caterpillar Killer (BT Concentrate) https://amzn.to/2SMXL8D

Weed Barrier with UV Resistance https://amzn.to/3yp3MaJ
Organza Bags (Fig-size) https://amzn.to/3AyaMUz
Organza Bags (Tomato-size) https://amzn.to/36fy4Re
Injection Molded Nursery Pots https://amzn.to/3AucVAB

6.5 Inch Hand Pruner Pruning Shears https://amzn.to/3jHI1yL
Japanese Pruning Saw with Blade https://amzn.to/3wjpw6o
Nylon Mason Line, 500FT https://amzn.to/3wd9cEo
Expandable Vinyl Garden Tape https://amzn.to/3jL7JCI

*****
SOCIAL MEDIA
Follow Me on TWITTER (@NCGardening) https://twitter.com/NCGardening
Follow Me on INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/millennialgardener/

*****
ABOUT MY GARDEN
Location: Southeastern NC, Brunswick County (Wilmington area)
34.1°N Latitude
Zone 8B

*****
*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
© The Millennial Gardener

#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #shadecloth #shadegarden

what’s gr on gardeners it’s Saturday June 1st and it is a gorgeous evening here on the Southeastern coast of North Carolina on today’s video I’m going to share with you all the biggest tip I could ever give you to grow a healthy and productive summer garden and that is to install shade cloth overhead I’m going to explain to you exactly why and how I’m going to do it don’t lose your garden to summer heat install shade cloth right now if you’re new to the Channel Please Subscribe and hit the Bell to receive new video notifications and check out our Amazon store and spread up links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom designed to power and other gear your support is greatly appreciated now before I begin for your convenience I will place links down in the video description to the exact shade cloth product that I am using in this video I’m going to install a very large piece but it comes in all different sizes including very small individual pieces as well first things first why would we want to install a shade cloth above our plants well that’s simple the overwhelming major maity of things that we grow in our annual vegetable gardens are not pioneer species things like tomatoes peppers eggplants cucumbers squashes melons they don’t grow out in Open Fields in full sun they grow underneath Forest canopies in dappled light and part-shade situations growing them out in full sun is the bane of their existence and it is the cause of so many of the problems that we have with these plants now you may be thinking hey I’ve bought all of these plants before and all of the tags at the Garden Centers and nurseries always say plant them out in full sun you’re telling me that they are not full sun species so what gives they are not full sun in their native habitats these plants come from subtropical and tropical regions where they don’t experience Frost or freeze so they can take their time and Meander and grow slowly in the dappled light and the part-shade situations here in temperate regions where we have a narrow window to grow all of these things we have to plant them out in full sun to get a big boost so they can absorb as much solar energy as possible and grow quickly as possible so they develop flowers and they fruit and ripen those fruits before our growing season comes to an end growing these plants out in full sun in order to get a faster Harvest comes at a major cost these plants did not adapt over long periods of time to tolerate unfiltered full sun especially at lower latitudes underneath say 40° latitude where the Sun starts getting really strong during the summer so once it gets really hot in the peak of Summer the Sun starts scorching the leaves it starts stressing out the plants because they didn’t adapt to tolerate full sun that long so when the plants get really stressed they start to get weak and they break down and when the plants start getting stressed and start getting weak that is when the diseases and the pests take hold because the plant’s internal immune system get broken down from that that really strong sunlight that is when you’ll start seeing things like leaf spot and blight start taking a hold because the plants have been beaten down by the sun just like if you were to lay out at the beach naked all day if the Sun is burning you it is burning your plants as well and in addition that will also attract pests because insect pests can naturally sense stress hormones in the plant they give off different pheromones and scents so when they detect that the plants are in trouble and they are stressed out that means that the plantss are weaker and easier to attack see the game that most of us gardeners play is this when it starts getting hot and humid in late spring early summer we start seeing blight and leaf spot and other things start taking over our plants so we do things like we spray with fungicides and bacteria sdes then the insects Bloom and then we start spraying for the insects as well so we’re constantly chasing our Tails trying to treat the symptoms instead of actually treating the root cause and the root cause is the stress from the hot intense Sun beating down on the plants for the past few years I’ve been erecting 40% shade cloth overhead and it is like a night and day difference with the plants because they are operating so much cooler and they’re not getting burnt by the strong UV index the plants are much more productive and they stay healthier their natural immune systems stay stronger longer so they are better able to resist diseases and they don’t draw in as many insect pests because they aren’t giving off those Troublesome stress pheromones and hormone signals that are drawing them in so for these reasons I recommend that the overwhelming majority of gardeners install shade cloth overhead to create a cooler easier microclimate for your plants to grow in they will be much happier and more productive now for me my reference point on when I install shade cloth is typically around Memorial Day so today is June 1st uh it was Memorial Day weekend last weekend this is about the right time for me to install shade cloth so for the question of when I would tell you to install shade cloth overhead when your UV index starts reaching about 8 and N if you’re in the 8/9 UV index the sun is too strong in most cases for these plants another indicator would be temperature if you’re consistently seeing temperatures in the mid to Upper 80s they will benefit from some shade so believe it or not these conditions don’t have to be that extreme to really beat down these plants that’s why I recommend the overwhelming majority of gardeners out there have shade cloth on hand now if you live in very high latitudes where your growing season is so short that you struggle to get a Harvest on these plants obviously you don’t want to do the shade cloth because you could cool them off so much and slow them down so much that you may not get a harvest or you’ll actually get less of a harvest because the plants won’t be able to grow and experience enough blooming and take their fruit to maturity so if that’s you then obviously you can skip this another reference on when to install shade cloth is if you start seeing tomato diseases start on your plants believe it or not I am already getting early blight and leaf spot on my tomatoes down at the bottom and people in the north often say wow tomato diseases already in late May early June yep my late May early June is like your Late July early August so how your Tomatoes start looking the first week of August is how m start looking the first week of June these plants have already been planted for 2 months so they’re going strong and they’ve been subjected to a lot of heat and humidity already so if you are starting to see tomato diseases appear that is a great signal that your sun is too strong and they need protection so that is the why and the when what about the how well the easiest way for most gardeners to install shade cloth will be to build something like a PVC hoop structure over their individual beds or install a low tunnel over the rows and then just install the shade cloth overhead and then just use PVC snap clamps in order to lock it into place and that’s what you see right here this is a 10t x 20t piece of 40% shade cloth draped above my Romain lettuce to try and keep it from bolting now if you’re curious about how I build these structures I’ll make sure to place a link above and down in the video description to my playlist that shows you all the different ways I make these simple hoop structures they’re really cheap and easy to make another thing you can do is is you can run a series of cables above your garden and then use the grommets in the shade tarps and then weave the cable through the grommets and erected overhead I’ve showed you how to do that in the past or as the dragonflies like to call these cables dragonfly perches I actually don’t like doing it because the dragonflies like sitting on these cables so much and it’s kind of their home but come the middle of summer I don’t really have a choice and I have to erect the shade cloth overhead but by far my best solution has been this makeshift High tone that I have above my container garden area I built this specifically to put shade cloth overhead and it has been an absolute Game Changer that is why for the most part I’ve grown my tomatoes and my cucumbers and squash plants underneath this structure and out of my garden they actually grow better because I can give them the most amount of protection so what I’m going to do in this video is I’m going to show you exactly how I install such a big piece of shade cloth over that tunnel now the first thing you want to do is you want to lay out the shade cloth lengthwise so it is basically centered by your tunnel structure or whatever large structure you were going to use and make sure that the overlap on each side is roughly equal then what I’m going to do is I’m going to manually drag it halfway and I’m going to use some PVC snap clamps to clip it to the top then I will take a string and I will tie it to one of the grommets and pull it over the rest of the way and temporarily secure everything with the PVC snap clamps until I can get to the point where I can install a clothes line and weave it in and out of the different grommets along the posts to permanently secure it when installing a shade tarp this large I strongly recommend you choose a day that has calm winds or at least as low of winds as possible typically all days have some amount of wind as the atmosphere heats up during the afternoon but the winds should die down in the evening when things start to cool off now we have the shade tarp up and we have it secured temporarily onto the halfin PVC conduits with 1/ in PVC snap clamps now these are not a permanent solution by any means they are only there to hold it down temporarily until we can secure it permanently because even the slightest Breeze is going to make this big tarp puff up and all of these snap clamps are going to snap right off so we’re actually going to secure it with nylon clothes line which again I’ll link to all of these things down in the video description for your convenience but before we run the nylon cloth line we are going to go to all four corners of the structure and we are going to grab the shade tarp and we are going to kind of wrap it around and twist it like you see right here because we don’t want this blowing off by any means and then I’m going to take just a zip tie and this is going to secure the ends down for the season so we’re just going to zip tie this in place just like that and we’re going to again go around all four corners and do that and again just to show you with a closeup right here we’re going to take the end of the shade tarp we’re going to kind of braid it we’re going to wrap it around the end post then I’m going to take this grommeted end right here I’m going to take a piece or a very long zip tie and then tie that off for the season and then when we want to remove it probably in late September we’ll just cut it off with a pair of Cutters now we are going to secure the shade tarp permanently with this piece of nylon clothes line and it’s very important that you use nylon not cotton or some other kind of natural fiber because the natural fibers of cotton will swell uh with rain and humidity and they will deteriorate in the sun you want to use nylon because it won’t do that it will be much more weather resistant so what I’ve done here was I tied off a pretty big section and I left probably 5 ft of slack here tied off that way when I run the clothes line all the way through I want to have enough slack in order to tie it together at the end so I’m going to take the piece of nylon and this is going to take time because when it is really long like this we are going to have to kind of slowly and painstakingly weave it through each of the individual grommets but each grommet that goes through it will become easier and easier and shorter and shorter so we’re going to go over and under so over that one and under this one now the key here is that at the tsts we want to make sure that the nylon clo line goes behind the TST not in front of the t-post because that is what’s going to keep the cover from blowing off in in higher winds if you put it over the tpost it’s just going to fly right off it has to be under so the closed line will grab it and pull against it and it won’t be able to go anywhere for a little bit of extra strength I’m actually going to make a little Loop before I feed it into the next grommet and now the clothesline has been woven in between all of the grommets wrapped around the toost where I can and everything is looking nice and secure every year this gets easier and easier and I get better and better at it now I know many of you are going to ask me what kind of wind can this shade tarp stand up to and I have to say three seasons of doing this this is surprisingly decent in the wind at least the 40% shade cloth is because this is mesh so there is a lot of air holes in it so a lot of the wind passes through it’s not like greenhouse plastic that’ll act like a parachute and catch 100% of the wind half the wind does pass through that being said half of the wind still is absorbed by the shade cloth so there is a bit of a parachute effect now we get a ton of thunderstorm activity here in the late spring and all throughout the summer and I’ve had no issue with winds that are up to say 30 to 35 mph that’s generally as bad as it gets here knock on wood with most traditional thunderstorms that being said I live in a very high risk hurricane Zone we get hit by tropical storms and hurricanes at least grazed by several of them every single year sometimes we get direct hits so for me personally if there’s just a glancing blow and we’re going to have winds that are 35 M hour or less I’m not really all that concerned that being said if we were to take a direct hit this would absolutely have to come down now the good news is if you can call it good news we typically get the worst of our tropical activity in September so by the time September rolls around usually the sun is weak enough that if I were to take this down for a September tropical storm or hurricane I wouldn’t have to put it back up because at that point they can deal with the residual uh UV index which is in decline in September so that’s not that big of a deal for you folks in say Central and South Florida or Central and South Texas where even in September you’re still getting blasted by high heat and high UV index hey if I’ve gotten you to the point where you were still growing your spring Tomatoes all the way until September that’s probably next to unheard of where you live so try and keep that in perspective this is not going to keep your plants alive forever they will probably still get some type of disease and fail but it will greatly extend their life probably at least by 2 months or so and this is what conditions are like under underneath the shade tunnel it is like night and day it is a whole different world here it can be 95° out with a UV index of 10 or higher just burning your skin you could feel it turning red and getting burnt but under here it’s surprisingly comfortable you can sit back underneath with a cocktail in your hand and a lounge chair it really makes that big of a difference now what’s awesome about this this um this mesh above is it doesn’t just help defend your plants against stress from the Sun it also helps reduce irrigation needs I’m already at the point where I have to water these tomatoes in 20 gallon grow bags every single day by 2: p.m. because by then they’re completely dried out and it’s getting worse every single week I have to water them earlier and earlier this is going to dramatically reduce my irrigation needs the other awesome thing is this mesh is going to keep things like birds away it’s going to block a lot of insects it’ll stop things like squirrels and deer in many areas because they won’t want to come into this structure so this is great to defend against nuisance pests as well now you may finally be asking well what about pollinators how are pollinators going to make it into my garden well the good news is the overwhelming majority of things that I grow in here do not require pollination by pollinators tomatoes are wind pollinated they just have to be shook around cucumbers I grow all parthenocarpic varieties that don’t require pollination they set and hold their fruit in the absence of pollination things like Peppers eggplants they’re all wind pollinated they just have to have their flowers shaken around the only thing in here that I really need pollination for are my zucchini well I had the foresight to specifically plant my zucchini on the edges here that way the bees will still be able to find the zucchini here are all of the flowers that one in the back clearly has already been pollinated with the flower that’s starting to drop off in the rear so hey I don’t think we’ll have any issues with a handful of plants that do need pollinators because we planted them on the outskirts of the shade Tunnel right here and that right there is why when and how to use shade cloth to rescue your garden from the heat of the summer if you’re at all on the fence about doing this please I beg you give it a try it makes a dramatic difference even if you’re at a relatively High latitude and you only get heat waves and it’s not persistently hot it still makes a big difference in fact this will make the biggest difference of all for people at High altitude so if you live in places like the high desert even if you think your growing season isn’t particularly long your UV index is so bad because of the thin atmosphere that this will make a dramatic difference so even if you live in places with pretty short growing Seasons it can still be beneficial so everybody I sure hope you found this video helpful if you did please make sure to hit that like button subscribe to the channel and please ring that notification Bell so you’re notified when I release more videos like these if you’re curious about any of the things that I used in this video or that I use in real life in my garden in general I will have direct links down in the video description and everything else I use in real life will be in my Amazon storefront so expand the video description click on the Amazon storefront link you’ll see everything I use in real life and while you’re down there please check out my spread shop for custom merch if you want to support the channel if you have any questions about the concepts in this video ask them in the comments below thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video oh boy look DA’s got a new toy come on buddy let’s go oh oh he loves it he’s loving it oh it’s got a squeaker you killed it already huh buddy no toy lasts all that long with you huh you sure look proud Dale deaded another toy