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| Thinking about pros/cons to different weed management options. Will be putting in a large garden (25x80) and want to reduce the manpower as much as possible. I have heard that drip irrigation combined with plastic or landscape fabric is the way to go. Wondering what your experiences are? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Slimy_Okra 2B (My Page) on Tue, Apr 1, 14 at 15:31
| Once you go black (plastic), you will never go back! In your zone, I would recommend it over landscape fabric. The latter cools the soil which is not something you want for solanums or cucurbits. IRT plastic is even more effective at warming the soil and almost as effective at weed prevention, but costs more. |
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| I wouldn't say it is the ideal way to go for all but in your zone it can be quite helpful. For us deeper south it can create several problems and landscape fabric often works better for us than IRT does.over the season long haul. There are many previous (and lengthy) discussions here about all the pros and cons of using it that the search will pull up for you if interested. Dave |
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| I would agree , in cooler, short season zones like yours it is a good choice. It is worth more than just weed prevention, it can also increase the soil temperature up to 5F. |
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| What do you plastic users do at the end of the season?...leave it on, pull it up, reuse, discard, do about irrigation [there is more than ONE answer for that], residues, amendments, row crops, and more? |
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- Posted by grovestead 4 (My Page) on Wed, Apr 2, 14 at 12:47
| Good question wayne, and also, what brand/style of plastic do you recommend? |
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| Well, I don't particularly recommend any plastic!! I use some clear plastic to warm soil for 5 or 6 days early in the season to germinate seeds. I use a bit of black plastic on half my sweetpotatoes, and I have used a bit of IRT 100 for watermelons. I reuse these plastics many times. |
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| What kind of Black plastic ? You can buy them in sheets/rolls OR use heavy gauge large trash bags and cut them open. |
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| I used to use black plastic for growing melons, but now I've switched to woven landscaping fabric (Luminte from Shaw Farbic). With the plastic I could maybe get 2 years out of it before it became too ripped up to use, but the Lumite is much tougher and I haven't had to replace any yet. I also use it for weed supression on any plant I can (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, squash, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, etc). The Luminte is more expensive to purchase, but over the long run, it's much cheaper. As you know, buying those huge rolls of black plastics is pretty expensive too and you can only get one or two seasons out of them. Back to the original question(s) - - I used to get my stuff at the giant hardware stores (Lowes or Home Depot around here). At the end of the season, I'd roll it up and put it in the shed. It lasts longer if you don't walk on it, but then how do you check your plants?!?! |
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| I've got some Lumite Too. However it may not be the best thing for heat loving crops further north. |
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| I THINK. the woven fabric used as weed barrier is fine if you just want weed prevention, but IF you want to warm up the soil, solid black or clear plastic is better. |
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| I agree that Lumite won't warm up the soil like black plastic. Last year I put a 3 ft wide strip of black plastic down and then put the Lumite down on the outside of it. I'm not sure it made a difference either way. (Last year was VERY wet early in the season and most of my melons got mildew early and never really recovered). Anyhow, does anyone have any idea on how wide the coverage area needs to be to warm the soil to make laying down plastic worth it? Is a 3 ft wide strip enough? Or 4? Or do I have to go 6 or 8 feet? Obviously more is better, but the seeds, plants and roots are so small early in the season that I wonder if "3 feet of warmth" is all they need? |
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| Because you have to bury the edges, 4 foot is best usually. |
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| I used black plastic for one season. It was 4ft wide black on one side white on the other. Got it on eBay just search plastic mulch on eBay. I didn't like how the weeds still came up in between the rows and it seemed to stop the water from getting at the plants. It was also a pain to clean up at the end of the season. You have to bury the edges of it so you get weeds in between the rows. The plastic I used it would of been impossible to use it another season. Definitely wont use it again. |
This post was edited by hartford on Sat, Apr 5, 14 at 18:48
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- Posted by Rio_Grande (My Page) on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 10:04
 We switched last year. I built a beder to lay the plastic and drip tape. I don't expect we will go back the other way. We still do all our cold season crops conventionally but all our warm season crops are done through plastic. The weeds that come up between rows is managed with a mower and mulch. |
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