Shading

My Shirley Tomatos are curling and a few other tomato plants are doing the same. Whats a cheap way to shade and how do you balance the need for shade on hot days with the need for full light on overcast days.

My Shirley's are in the sunniest corner of the greenhouse in a growbag if that helps.

smiles
adam

 

Are there any greenfly on the leaves this can cause them to curl up. Do you have the greenhouse well ventilated?

 

have not seen any greenfly bit will look them up and check carefully.

2 roof vents are open pretty much constantly barring high winds, door is opened when i get up and closed when i go to bed.

 

thanks for the reassurance John.

 

Hi folks. I use regular greenhouse shading, a kind of netting. It seems to me that it's quite effective when it's bright and sunny, but I'm concerned that it affords TOO much shade when it's like it is now, dull. I was thinking of maybe trying bubble wrap instead. Any thoughts ?

Cheers...freddy.

 

I'm sure everyone has their favourite shading, but for what they're worth, these are my thoughts.

Personally I wouldn't use bubble wrap, although I know some people do and are very happy with it but I see it more as an insulation material rather than one for shading.

My reasons for not are hardly scientific but, although lightweight, I found it awkward to 'manhandle', even when cut into 2' strips (to fit the width of greenhouse glass panes), also there was the question of where to put it when not in use. I've tried taking the whole lot down (time consuming and a danger of snapping off young growing shoots if used inside), I also found that it created quite a bit of condensation and was surprisingly expensive. If used on the outside, there was the question of how to fix it along the ridge and since I personally couldn't find any sufficiently wide to do the side of the greenhouse in one piece, it meant joining with tape or clips and even the slightest breeze had the stuff flapping about. Yes, you can hold the bottom down with bricks but not the sides.

I have used the green netting shading but I also thought it might be too efficient on dull days (especially for those of us who have to make decisions about the amount of sun we might get, before we leave for work in the morning). My neighbour uses a mixture of brushwood and reed (fence type) screening on the outside of his greenhouse, which seems to work well as it filters the sunlight, and has rigged up a roman blind type affair to raise and lower it - but then he is at home all day.

These days I just use Coolglass, not very pretty I grant you, but it does the job and, being white, reflects the light even on dull days.

 

You're probably on the right track. I still have the bubblewrap in place which I had to protect from frost, it breaks up the sunrays and diffuses the light.

 

Hi folks, thanks for the replies.
The problem I have is that I don't really have access to one side of my g/house, therefore it would be difficult to use Coolglass. That pretty much leaves me with two options, shading or bubblewrap. It would be fairly straight forward to use bubblewrap as my g/house is wooden, so I could use something like drawing pins to hold it up. Something to ponder on.......

Cheers...freddy.

 

Hi freddy. Due to the location of my greenhouse, I don't have access to one side of mine either - fortunately that is the side which is naturally shaded and thus doesn't need owt, so I just put the coolglass on the roof, along one side and on the ends. Being a 'gel' I'm not tall enough to reach the apex, so I use a brush on a pole to apply the stuff and a sponge covered duster on the same pole to wipe it off.

Have you thought of putting the coolglass on the interior of the side you can't to?

 

Hi Fidgetsmum.
"Have you thought of putting the coolglass on the interior of the side you can't to? "

I've never used Coolglass, but I imagine it can be a bit messy when washing off ?
The thing with bubblewrap is, once it's up, it can be left to provide insulation during the cold times.
I'm tempted along this path.

Cheers...freddy.