Photos by Steve Bloom/The Olympian
Cloches have helped Diane and Niels Skov extend their growing season. The shelters are inexpensive and easy to construct.

Tomatoes thrive inside cloches. Diane Skov plans to harvest her two rows of roma-style tomatoes well into December. "We're vegetarians. We eat a lot of red sauce," she said.

Squash ripen outside a raised cloche.

Shelter from the storms

Cloches let plants thrive long after winter weather arrives

SARAH JACKSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published September 8, 2001

OLYMPIA -- Tucked into a majestic forest of fir and cedar, Diane and Niels Skov's home and garden sit at the end of a winding, mossy road on a quiet Cooper Point ridge.

Expansive and airy, their woodsy shingled home -- with hints of Frank Lloyd Wright inside and out -- stretches wide and seems to somehow secure the quintessentially Northwest landscape.

Out their back window, the yard descends gracefully down spectacular tiers, secured with field stone granite, bedded with wood chips and bedecked with myriad shrubs, flowers and trees.

But it's what's on the far side of this gardener's paradise -- complete with greenhouse, wash basin, composting areas, a chicken coop and potting stations -- that might be the most remarkable.

They're cloches -- white and chunky.

While the tents of heavy-duty plastic and PVC pipe compose probably the least attractive area of Diane's garden, the domed, plastic-pipe plant protectors have helped her grow veggies for more than 10 years.

"They're really mini greenhouses," Diane said. "So much food comes out of this."

Cloches have helped Diane -- a Master Gardener trained through the Washington State University Cooperative Extension program -- extend the Pacific Northwest gardening season.

Shielding her plants from wind, rain and frosts, cloches have not only nurtured Diane's plants early in the spring and into the winter, they've also increased yields, decreased weeds and deterred seasonal pests.

Cloche -- pronounced "klosh" -- means bell in French and initially described the bell-shaped covers used by market gardeners to protect plants.

Modern cloches can be just about any size.

They're incredibly cheap and relatively easy to create from hardware-store goods.

Frost-free

Diane's cloches will come in handy especially now, as temperatures dip and South Sound's mid-October frosts loom.

Instead of fearing the demise of her entire tomato crop, Diane will be harvesting her two rows of cloche-covered roma-style tomatoes well into December.

"We're vegetarians. We eat a lot of red sauce," Diane said, adding that her numerous tomato plants greening outside the cloches won't likely be so lucky.

"I'll probably lose most of them as soon as the first cold night comes along," she said.

Her tomatoes under cover will ventilate during the day through side openings -- essential for air circulation.

But when evenings start cooling off, though, she'll close each end overnight with a homemade, half-circle cover made of polycarbonate plastic.

"The soil warms up and the cover keeps it in. When it starts getting frosty, I'll close these at night."

Heat haven

While Diane usually starts most of her plants in her greenhouse in the spring, she doesn't typically plant before Memorial Day -- even in the cloches.

Though that's well beyond the oft-prescribed Mother's Day planting date for South Sound gardeners, Diane says she still sees great yields.

"I get quick growth and I get full growth," Diane said. "Plants grow based on temperature. This retains the heat."

That's why Diane started harvesting tomatoes in August and why her winter squashes are bulbous and exploding from a raised-bed -- once-cloched -- garden.

Lettuces over the summer enjoyed a life span in the cloches alongside the tomato plants when they were smaller.

Onions, zucchini, kale, leeks and carrots still benefit from the cloche covers.

Peppers, covered in another cloche in Diane's garden --also will have more time to ripen.

"Peppers really do well in this sort of environment," Diane said. "Hot peppers."

The Territorial Seed Co. also recommends cloche covers for Swiss chard, spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, endive and corn salad.

The Skovs -- who garden organically -- enjoy eating veggies right off the vine into the winter.

"Your stuff stays clean," Diane said. "It keeps off pollen and dirt."

Pest deterrent

While cloches won't stop deer from sneaking a bite -- the Skovs have an 8-foot chicken-wire fence to keep deer out -- they can decrease chances of getting many of the pests commonly feared in South Sound.

Keeping rain off the tomato leaves can decrease chances for blight, Diane said, as well as carrot rot and cabbage maggots.

Recent graduate Master Gardener Ron Granberg and his comrades at the Dirt Works demonstration garden in west Olympia created an experimental cloche garden for a row of tomatoes in May.

As autumn sets in, they'll see if the plants are able to resist the onset of blight. They'll also compare yield with rows of tomatoes grown outside the cloches.

"We've actually gotten more ripe tomatoes outside at this point," Granberg said. "But part of it's taste, too."

Though he's heard no sign of late blight yet this fall, Gary Kline, owner Black Lake Organic Nursery and Garden Store in Olympia, said cloches can keep the fungus from landing on leaves.

Set up

Kline said cloche-style gardening appears to be on the rise among his clientele, if in part only because of clips that come in a variety of sizes to attach plastic sheets to PVC piping.

"Yes it is increasing," Kline said. "And the little plastic clips are kind of the heart of it."

Black Lake Organic carries plastic clips for $1 each and "6-mil," UV-resistant plastic for covering for about $10 for a 5-foot-by-20-foot piece, which lasts for a minimum of four years.

Garden stores and seed catalogues carry various cloche supplies, and most hardware stores carry PVC pipe, made of the vinyl polymer, poly vinyl chloride.

-iels said he and Diane have financed their cloches for $10 to $20 each.

They've fashioned raised beds using wood from Second Use Building Materials and Windfall Lumber & Milling in Olympia, which allows for warmer soil, too.

On a raised bed the effects of cloching are even better, Diane said.

"It's not being rained on and leeched," Diane said. "It's really is a win-win."

Because the Skovs use raised beds, they pound a 3-foot stick of rebar into the ground to secure the PVC pipe, a flexible, easy-to-cut pipe spaced about 3 feet apart in the Skovses' 4-foot by 12-foot veggie beds.

"You can take them off and put them on," Diane said. "You can raise and lower the height of your cloche by raising up the pipe along the rebar."

Though Diane uses an irrigation hose for watering, the cloches can be taken down, moved or pulled back for watering and pruning.

Diane said fall is a great time to set up cloches -- especially for gardeners planning raised beds.

"It's a project you can do this time of year," Diane said. "Get your gear. Get your ribs up, if you want, so that next spring when you're really ready to garden, you're ready to plant."

Sarah Jackson writes for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-704-6871 or olyjax@yahoo.com.

Resources

- "Gardening Under Cover: A Northwest Guide to Solar Greenhouses, Cold Frames, and Cloches" by William Head.

- "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Natural Gardening" by Steve Solomon.

- "Gardening Under Cover" by Alan Toogood.

- The "Two Rainy Side Gardeners" Web site offers a how-to look at cloches at: www.rainyside.com/ resources/cloche.html.

- "Cool-climate veggies" are the topic at the Home and Garden Television Web site: www.hgtv.com/HGTV/project/0,1158,GALA_project_28083,FF.html.

- Check out these pointers for creating a raised-bed garden from HGTV: www.hgtv.com/HGTV/project/0,1158,FOLI_project_20107, FF.html.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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