Repurposing Old Curtains and Late Season Lettuce

Though I love our chickens dearly they've been a bit of a menace this year. The the ground where are electronet fence is set up is quite uneven so several times this spring the chickens managed to find places they could sneak under. For what ever reason one of their favorite things to do on these little escapes was scratch up the bed where we had seeded our lettuce.

Needless to say we have a pretty sad lettuce harvest.

Our little table at the market, with only 3 bags of lettuce.

So we decided to try some late lettuce under shade cloth to keep it cool. The one problem is we don't have shade cloth or the money to buy it. In comes some old curtains. They're white, shear, perfect shade cloth material, and have been sitting in the garage for a while. You know that saying, "use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without?" It's one of my favorites.

All we had to do was plant some lettuce in one of our raised beds, pound in some stakes around it, and tack said curtains to the stakes. Its not the most high tech system but we're hoping the shade and consistent watering will give us some midsummer salads.

Do you do anything to extend your green's season? We'd welcome any ideas.

***UPDATE***

It worked!