This year we're trying something new for us: temporary shade screens. I got the idea from some Facebook gardening groups I'm in, and Mike figured out how to build them. We have a couple of different designs. The simplest ones, shown above over the tomato plants, are just 30% shade cloth from Arizona Bag Company.. Here's a link to a Youtube video on how to construct these. The instructions are for young fruit trees (see picture below) but we just made a bigger one for the tomatoes.
Our new Ein Shemer apple tree (planted this spring) was really suffering from the heat. I'd painted the trunk earlier in the spring, but it just doesn't have enough of a canopy to protect it from the afternoon sun. The leaves were becoming dangerously singed around the edges as our temperatures soared into the teens. We hope that by providing it a little extra shade this summer, it will survive and grow big enough that it won't need the shade screen next summer.
We also expanded the shade screen over the blackberry bush to cover our new Brown Turkey fig tree (planted last fall). It was thriving until the heat set in, and produced several dozen figs which are ripening now. This design is made out of PVC pipe, with the shade screen held in place by grommets. It's a little sturdier, but also more time-consuming to construct. We purchased all the materials at Home Depot, and I'm not sure what percentage the shade screen is but it's more than 30%. I got the idea for this one from pictures people had posted in this Facebook group. and Mike adapted their designs for our needs. Once an engineer, always an engineer...and a very handy one!
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