0:00Hi guys, Jonathan here with Farmers Friend. I'm at Bountiful Blessings Farm with my dad John and we're going over some questions that have been submitted

0:08by our customers and we have a question from Cynthia. She asks, "How can frost cloth, shade cloth, and insect netting be used interchangeably in a pinch?" So,

0:20what do you got for us? Well, I I would say first of all that they're really not very

0:27interchangeable. Each has a very uh specific um purpose. Um you know frost cloth or I I use the word row cover.

0:38There's a lot of terms some people call it agribon or whatever but um you know it's meant to trap

0:46heat and shade cloth is meant to um to you know cut out sunlight to cool it off underneath.

0:56And insect netting is of course to keep insects out, but it's also to try to dissipate heat. So that's why it's it's,

1:06you know, got holes in it. Mhm.

1:09Depending on on which one you get. You know, the holes can be larger or smaller. So they're really not very interchangeable.

1:19But I I would say I think that she's probably thinking about, you know, if you have a very lightweight row cover or

1:27frost cloth, the lightest weight, some people do use that as an insect um

1:35barrier, insect netting, because it obviously is going to exclude insects.

1:43And if it's the super lightweight stuff, it's not going to trap too much heat.

1:48Yeah, we're talking about like 0.5 ounce or 6 ounce like the really lightweight.

1:54You know, the problem with that really lightweight stuff is it's so easy to tear. Um it it just, you know, it's

2:02almost like paper or something. So, it's not going to last very long. Um in my opinion, you're much better off shelling

2:11out the money to get proper insect netting. Um, and just use that, you know, in your shoulder seasons when you could use a few degrees of protection,

2:24uh, you know,

2:26temperature protection, then certainly you can use the row cover instead of insect netting.

2:35But um I don't know how you would use shade cloth interchangeably except again

2:43I mean row cover does cut out a little bit of sunlight. So you know depending on the

2:51thickness obviously the thicker it is the less light transmission. So you know maybe that's what she's thinking of there.

2:59But yeah, I mean it's a pain to have to have all of them, but I would say you're going to be compromising a

3:09lot if you're trying to use something that was designed for specific purpose for something that it wasn't designed

3:17for. Yeah, I agree. I I also feel like we should clarify that Benefit Blessings Farm does not use Agribond. Uh, go to

3:25Farmer's Friend and buy the top quality made in the USA Grow Guard from Atmore Industries. Yeah. I mean, hey, when we

3:33first, excuse me, when we first started out, we tried at least three different brands

3:41um, and had major issues, you know, with seams ungluing and breaking down in one

3:48season kind of thing. Of course, this was a long time ago. probably they've all improved since then, but when we

3:56found Grow Guard, we've stuck with it and we haven't had any complaints to be honest. We probably been using Grow

4:03Guard for um 23 years. Yeah, it's less susceptible to tearing and uh they they

4:13definitely uh put a lot of focus in high quality sourcing of their materials cuz I've talked with them about that quite extensively um to make sure that there's

4:22consistency in their product. So, and again, we're not downing any one particular brand. You know, I'm sure

4:30there's many other good brands out there, but we we've stuck with Yeah.

4:35Agroban is like the, you know, it's like the band-aid of the it's it's the the trademark term that that a lot of people

4:42use, but there are other options and we prefer Grow Guard and that's what Farmers Friend sells. Uh it's a very quality product. So, all righty. Well,

4:52if you're listening to this and you have a question that you would like us to answer in a future video, click that link down below and submit it. But until next time, happy growing.