Last year was the first time I put some shade cloth over the tomatoes down in the garden as they really suffer during the streaks of high 90s and 100 degree temps in the summer. The tomatoes up at the house get a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day and do much better. Last year I just threw together something when it got hot and I wanted something better this year. So today was the day.

First the 2nd story cages were put in place on just the big tomatoes, tied in three places to the bottom cages. I do this every year for the big growers but this year I'm also trying some dwarf tomatoes and one cage should be enough for the five dwarf tomatoes on the right.




Then I ran poles across the tops of the cages on both sides, tying the cages to the poles and the poles to the pallets. This makes a solid unit that's never been blown down.




Shade cloth construction zone!



Next I pounded in the t-posts on the sunny side of the bed and tied 8' poles to them. Then I put a nail into each pole 80" up and angled the nail. This is also how I make all of my trellises, hanging pieces of field fencing on the angled nails and tying the fencing to the posts. They work great and go up quickly.




This is one of the clips that came with the shade cloth. It has little spikes that go through the cloth and it snaps tightly onto the cloth.





Once the clips were snapped onto the shade cloth it was easy to just put a clip over each nail and hang the cloth.




Now this is all well and good and got put together pretty much trouble free. HOWEVER...at 4PM there's STILL no shade on the tomatoes because the sun is still rather high in the sky shining pretty much straight down! This won't do AT ALL!!!!! And the thing is I don't know if the screen as constructed WILL work later in June and July because the angle of the sun will change. I'd hate to dismantle something now that might work later. AAAARRRRRRGGGGGHH!

Maybe if leave the screen alone and lay more cloth across the top of just the cages on the sunny side it will cast more shade. I thought about hoops over the top like a giant tunnel over the double row of cages.. However the black irrigation hose hoops I use to make tunnels over beds is too lightweight to use in a larger length for that. It wouldn't support the cloth.

The screen is not as critical right now because it's not 90+ degrees every day so I have time to adjust things and rethink it. And in case anyone is wondering, the shade cloth is 50%, 20' x 6.5'.

We have some panels made from shade cloth ,bamboo.I do not affix permanently but it is made to attach fixed in ground staking and movable.

When I try to shade my veggies, I mostly shade them from the west and overhead. I like to leave the east side open for air. Morning sun is much more gentle than the brutal afternoon sun when it gets into the 90s and above.

I'm planning to set up some overhead shade cloth for my small greenhouse and seedling area today. I will try to make it somewhat adjustable, so that I can allow some morning sun but exclude all late afternoon sun. Right now there's a small patch of bamboo (slated for removal this summer!! but not while I still. have seedlings!) that blocks some of the afternoon sun.