Homemade Clotches

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Homemade Clotches
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steve.k

Joined: 05 Jan 2005
Posts: 21
Location: Kent

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 05 8:11 pm Post subject: Homemade Clotches

By obtaining odd scraps of plastic water or gas pipe approx. 1.0m in length. Can be begged from building site skips or even your local water or gas depot if their nearby. Place them in the ground either side and over the plant bed in a row. You can place clear polythene over these or netting as required. Don't forget to ask if taking from a builders skip as technically this is theft if permission is not obtained.

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 05 8:14 pm Post subject:
I'm losing it - I read this as homemade clothes - wondered why it involved plastic pipe!!!

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 05 8:24 pm Post subject:
I often cut the bottoms off 5 litre water bottles to make bell cloches. Nice tip, Steve, thanks.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45670
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 05 8:31 pm Post subject:
Good tip Steve, welcome on board. Like the new you Jo

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 05 9:45 am Post subject:

This year, time allowing, I'm going to try a cloche made out of a sheet of clear corrugated roofing sheet and some wire hoops made out of 5mm wire. The rough idea is to bed the wire, using a template of nails hammered into a board, into and arc equivalent, to the outside arc of the sheet bent into a semicircle, with some legs for pusinng into the ground.

As the roofing will be trying to push outwards and straighten itself, I'll need to put some 'restrainers', a length of wire hooped around each leg, across the bottom of each leg of the wire to hold it in, equivalent in length to the diamre of the semi circle.

A cane along the top to joing the wire arcs together should keep them stable and make it rigid but very easy and light to pick up and move. It'll need to be firmly anchored but should be more durable that plastic sheeting. For the ends I've got some more clear rigid plastic filched from a skipped sunbed.

You should be able to get two rows of carrots or similar under each cloche. The roofing sheets only cost �5 (ar B&Q slightly less from roofing supplies) for a 6ft length and the wire is pennies per metre, copared to �15 for commercially available products.

If this doesn't make sense please ask and I'll try to be clearer.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 05 11:31 am Post subject:
I do a similar thing with the roofing plastic, but just bung short stakes in the ground and wedge the arc between them. Yours sounds easier to move, and longer lasting though (and lot posher!)

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 05 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: Homemade Clotches

steve.k wrote:

By obtaining odd scraps of plastic water or gas pipe approx. 1.0m in length.

There have been articles in the Kitchen Garden Magazine using the pip to make a greenhouse frame from. From memory, the sides are timber and the pipe attached to form the roof. Then a plastic covering to make a cross between a greenhouse and pollytunnel.

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Thu Jan 06, 05 6:51 pm Post subject:
This is how my cloches work. This year I'm going for fleece as the cloches do dry out really fast.

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 05 9:58 am Post subject:
I fancy trying the pipe and fleece protection this year. I've always thought of cloches being for frost protection up to end of may and then off when it gets drier. Is fleece as durable as enviromesh- given the difference in price how many years will you get out of the fleece? Can you wash fleece?

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 05 8:15 pm Post subject:

Behemoth wrote:

given the difference in price how many years will you get out of the fleece?

Three years so far, it would be more had I not ripped it when in a hurry

Behemoth wrote:

Can you wash fleece?

Yes, hand wash in the bath gets rid of most of the dirt

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 05 10:10 pm Post subject:

mrutty wrote:

Behemoth wrote:

Can you wash fleece?

Yes, hand wash in the bath gets rid of most of the dirt

Do you need to?

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 05 10:25 pm Post subject:
Yes I do as a fox rolled around into and made it all muddy Last edited by mrutty on Fri Jan 07, 05 11:17 pm; edited 1 time in total

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Jan 07, 05 10:27 pm Post subject:
Oh

Sarah D

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 2584

Posted: Sat Jan 08, 05 1:34 am Post subject:
It should be washed anyway, for mudsplashes, etc.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sat Jan 08, 05 9:44 am Post subject:
As people often grow crops full time under fleece (stops flea beetle for one) I would have thought it needs to be clean to let as much light through. Have people done this here and are the results good? We have suffered from cabbage root fly this year and caterpillars over the last few so I'm thinking of fleece or fine netting.

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