Wow what a difference the plastic mulch makes

18 years ago

When I started with this I put in a box with black plastic and one box without.

My experience with this is that I have done no weeding with the black plastic, watered about 1/5 or less and the plants are doing so much better.

By mikeinparadise at 2008-08-04

We harvested a head of cabbage yesterday (great coleslaw) from the box with plastic mulch.

I had problems starting seeds with the black plastic as it was not tight enough and the flapping destroyed a lot of seeds. It seemed to work best to me with I had substantial sized transplants.

Next year I am going to stretch it over top and nail wood on top of it as oppossed to trying to tuck it in the sides of the boxes.

Any one have any other experiences with plasic mulch?

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Comments (3)

jwstell42
18 years ago
This is my first year gardening but my experience is the same as yours.

Once the plants get established, it is awesome! Zero weeding, and with the rainy weather we have had, I haven't watered the garden in over a month.

However with the seedlings it's difficult, they can get burned / destroyed easily. Once i figured this out, I just put rocks around each of the plants until they got established to hold the plastic down, and then pulled them back.
msyoohoo
18 years ago
Nice Mike. I may try to get things going early next year using black plastic. Is that why you used it? Or just an experiment.
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mike_in_paradise
Original Author
18 years ago
1) I hate weeding
2) We have a short growing season (June 7-Sept 29 frost dates)
3) I read all these great things about it
4) I do not live where the garden is so anything to reduce watering especially if it gets hot and I do not get out there..

Now with my corn box I planted it 2 weeks ahead of the last frost date and I used plastic to get an early start and that also worked out very well.