I was thinking about my row covers today. I used to have a couple of season extenders that I called “tunnels.” They were just a wooden box like a raised bed around the outside of the row with a mini hoop house attached to it. Like a small greenhouse just big enough for a row. I primarily grew peppers or melons in these and they worked great. But did I need this season extender to get a good crop?
Nope. I live on the Prairies in Canada where most people consider it bitterly cold but our summers are dry and hot. I grew melons and peppers just on black plastic last year and harvested about 40 red bell peppers in August and got my first red pepper the last week in July. Just with black plastic. Of course starting the right varieties at the right time myself sure helped. But I did have one problem on open ground that I didn’t have in my mini hoop house row cover - sun scald. The plastic cover was made of a super strong woven poly which was great at diffusing the light and preventing sun scald. Another great use for season extenders.
What was my main motivation for the mini hoop house row covers? I didn’t want to lose my crop. The prairies are famous for winds that would snap a pepper stem but in a row cover you get wind protection for your plants. You also get protection from hail. Last year while my peppers were on open ground we had a light hail that put small holes in the young peppers leaves that stayed all season. A good woven poly row cover will bounce the hail right off of it. But it has to be woven or the hail will pierce it.
As you can see, the devices we use to help us in the early garden can also help all season long. Next year try building a single row mini hoop house style row cover and put your most important or most fragile plants in there and you can almost guarantee that the wind, hail and frost won’t touch them - and you’ll get an early garden too.