Row Cover & Fabric for Every Bed

A floating row cover is a lightweight fabric — spunbond fleece or fine agronet — laid loosely straight over a crop or draped over low hoops. It lets light, air and water through while protecting plants from frost, cold wind and insect pests. "Floating" means it rests on the crop with slack, so plants can push it up as they grow without being crushed.

The fabric needed is the bed area plus an overlap allowance for draping over the crop and burying the edges. Cover area = bed length × bed width × (1 + overlap %). For a 10 m × 1.2 m bed with a 30% allowance you need about 10 × 1.2 × 1.30 ≈ 15.6 m² of fabric.

Fabric laid flat at exactly the bed size leaves nothing to anchor or to let plants grow. The overlap allowance adds slack so the cover can drape over the crop's height, sag between hoops, and have enough margin at the sides and ends to bury, weigh down or clip — keeping wind and pests out.

For a flat, ground-level cover on short crops, 15–25% is usually enough. For taller crops or low tunnels over hoops you need more slack to clear the height and bury the edges, so 30–50% is safer. The more vertical room the crop needs and the windier the site, the larger the allowance.

Use spunbond fleece (e.g. 17–30 g/m²) for frost and wind protection and a few degrees of warmth; heavier grades give more frost protection but less light. Use fine agronet or insect netting for pest exclusion when warmth isn't the goal — it has larger, precise mesh that blocks insects while staying cooler and more breathable.

Bury the side and end margins in a shallow trench, weigh them with soil, sandbags, boards or rocks, or pin with ground staples. A sealed edge is what keeps pest-exclusion netting working and stops wind from lifting the cover. The overlap allowance in the calculation provides the spare fabric for this.

Not always. Light fleece can float directly on hardy crops that tolerate contact. Hoops (a low tunnel) keep fabric off tender or fast-growing plants, improve airflow, stop abrasion in wind, and make harvesting easier. If you use hoops, increase the overlap allowance to cover their height.

Yes — good-quality fleece and agronet last several seasons if handled gently. Lift it on warm sunny days to avoid overheating and to let pollinators in for crops that need them, store it dry and out of UV when not in use, and patch small tears with tape so they don't spread.

Yes — enter any bed length and width and the tool returns the cover area in the same area unit, plus the bed area and the overlap percentage used. It works for single beds, long market-garden rows or low tunnels; just scale the length to match your planting.

They're solid planning figures for ordering fabric. Real usage varies with crop height, hoop spacing, how deeply you bury the edges and the fabric width available in a roll. Round up when buying, allow extra for joins and end-caps, and keep offcuts for patching.