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shade Shade fabric?

synclinorium

synclinorium

I've recently discovered a friend-of-a-friend is a chilehead, so I got to talking with him about pepper varieties. He informed me he had little luck with his C. Pubescens and some of his C. Baccatums during the heat of our summers (which can get over 100 rather frequently during late July and August), at least not until growing them under a tree that gave them partial shade during the hottest parts of the day.

Well, I have no trees I'm comfortable putting my plants under (the only one in the backyard is half dead, and will probably break in the next big storm), so I was just wondering if anyone here has used shade fabric for their peppers. If so, what grade works best (i.e., 30%, 40%, 50%, etc.)?

Otherwise, I had planned on putting them near an east-facing side of the house, but that would give them complete shade from about 2-3 o'clock onward.

Any suggestions?
 
i live in miami and i can't let my plants get a full 12 hours of full sun. they start to wilt a bit. instead i have them on the east side of the house and probably catch about 7 hours of sun. the shadow of the house gives it a cool shade but its still hot so its pretty ideal, so the shade wouldnt be a completely bad idea. but theres some on here that swear by a full days of sun. i guess it depends on the humidity/temperature
 
I just ordered a 60' X 20' piece of 30% black shade cloth...I think the recommendation for our type of "veggies" is 40-50%...I have 50% black over my tomato garden...
 
I'm going to use it for my Datils and tomatoes this year. I'm not growing Rocotos this year but in years past, I couldn't get even a modest harvest without some shade.
 
AlabamaJack said:
I just ordered a 60' X 20' piece of 30% black shade cloth...I think the recommendation for our type of "veggies" is 40-50%...I have 50% black over my tomato garden...
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Sounds good. I was just looking at 47% fabric. If I put that over them next to our south-facing fence, I think it will work pretty well.

Bob_B said:
I'm going to use it for my Datils and tomatoes this year. I'm not growing Rocotos this year but in years past, I couldn't get even a modest harvest without some shade.
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Yeah, I'm growing Datils too and had similar concerns. It isn't a problem at the moment because we've had so much rain the past couple weeks that they're happy to get any sunlight at all. I'm also growting Rocotos and a couple of the Aji varieties. Nothing else comes to mind that would specifically dislike direct sun and heat of midday, but I guess all peppers stop producing after a point...
 
greenhouse megastore or something like that...I think that is who I ordered from....
 
Chris...the cost varies with the type you get of course...I buy off of a bulk roll which is the cheapest and I use the stuff that doesn't have to have a border not to unravel...a 20' wide bulk roll is 2.31 per foot...so my 20 X 60 piece was 138 plus shipping...

the 12' wide bulk roll of 30% black is 1.39 per foot so you are talking about 16.68 plus shipping for a 12' X 12' piece

here is a link...

http://www.greenhousemegastore.com/category/shade-cloth
 
For a 10' x 10' I just use an old fashion tarp on top of a structure or frame for support. Morning and afternoon light will direct and not burn the plants but the noonday sun will be blocked. I use a blue tarp to match the color of the sky. To the OP since you live in the northern US I'd just use the side of the house for some afternoon shade, a shade tarp is needed in places like Florida.
 
I found out Manzanos/Rocotos need a big pot to deal with the sun.
I grow lots of them here in S.California and thaught I needed shade cloth to deal with my gardens southern exposure with no shade in our 100 summers.
Shade cloth didn't do much.Plants still weren't happy.
Once I put my plants in 20 gal. containers and #15 pots most grew great without shade.
I think in small pots the roots get too hot,bigger pots diod the trick.
Gotta water every day too.
Mites killed most of my manzano/rocoto last year...The yellow leaves on these 2 plants is caused by mites.

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Pepper Ridge Farm said:
For a 10' x 10' I just use an old fashion tarp on top of a structure or frame for support. Morning and afternoon light will direct and not burn the plants but the noonday sun will be blocked. I use a blue tarp to match the color of the sky. To the OP since you live in the northern US I'd just use the side of the house for some afternoon shade, a shade tarp is needed in places like Florida.
Click to expand...

Me too. I am using a blue tarp over the greenhouse on the sunny days like today. They are half way through the hardening process. Today they got a couple hours of direct sun in the morning and the rest of the day will be diffused by the blue tarp. Quite a bit of indirect light still gets through into the greenhouse, which surprised me.
 
smokemaster said:
I found out Manzanos/Rocotos need a big pot to deal with the sun.
I grow lots of them here in S.California and thaught I needed shade cloth to deal with my gardens southern exposure with no shade in our 100 summers.
Shade cloth didn't do much.Plants still weren't happy.
Once I put my plants in 20 gal. containers and #15 pots most grew great without shade.
I think in small pots the roots get too hot,bigger pots diod the trick.
Gotta water every day too.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I don't really have containers that large, so I guess I'll just try to keep the pots sheltered. Thankfully they're white buckets, which should help, but I guess worst case scenario I could partially bury them.
 
#15 pots are about 7 1/2 gal.
If you are using 5 gal. white buckets you might be ok.
I know #5,3 1/2 gal. buckets/nursery pots are too small.

Maybe put something in front of or between the sun and your buckets to make it so the sun doesn't actually shine on your buckets.
Might keep the roots cooler.
I think once the soil gets hot it stays hot for a while.
So keeping just the pot out of direct sun might work.
Putting the pots in the ground ,like you wrote,would keep the roots cool enough too.
 
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