Benefits- Helps to increase your growing season and protect your vegetables
- Soil warming
- Pre warming = early germination and growth
- Creates a heat sink that will release heat during the night
- Early removal of weeds
- Weather protection
- Provides shelter from frost, snow, high winds, heavy rain
- Crops more protected = better growth
- Winter crops e.g spinach = less mud splashed, more tender
- Increased ease of growth in winter as vegetables more protected
- Forwarding crops
- Helps vegetables to reach maturity/fruiting time earlier
- Aids early root growth and help promotes flowering and ripening
- Helps to stagger harvesting time
- Growing season extended
- Warmer and protected environment = plants encouraged to grow
- Germination starts sooner and is extended longer
- Pest protection
- Easy-Cloche = first line of defence for seedlings
- Protects them from weather, slugs, rodents and birds
- Pest control methods easier to control and more effective
- Organic pellets, beer traps, bran, copper wires etc more protected = not affected by wind and rain
- Hardening off
- Plants usually need 2 – 6 weeks to harden off before being placed in final growing position = time decreased
- Helps to acclimatize plants quicker
- Protects plants from frost
- Greater control of hardening off period
- Blanching and sun protection
- Blanched crops e.g endives covered = bitterness reduced
- Create dappled shade = splatter mud on easy cloche or whitewash underside
- Successional sowing
- Sow a row of seeds, cover and once germinated extend row with more sowing and move easy cloche along
- Successional sowing helps to avoid glut of crops
- Nursery bed
- Raise seedlings and plants before being transferred to final growing position
- Aids overwintering small plants ready to be planted in the following Spring
- Skin set of Crops
- Easy cloche helps to set and harden skins of Root crops after harvesting to ensure good storage
 Frames and Cloth Installation
|
