Growing Vegetable Garden On Plastic Sheeting

Using plastic row covers to extend your vegetable garden into the winter months can allow you to harvest fresh vegetables nearly year round.

Growing vegetable garden on plastic sheeting.

Black plastic prevents weed growth eliminating the need for hand weeding between your plants. Plastic sheeting has many uses in the home garden. Dig a 3 inch deep trench around the edges of your garden bed. Plastic sheeting for weed control offers the advantage of being impermeable.

The most obvious advantage to using any kind of plastic sheeting is that it will prevent the growth of weeds. Seems fine safety wise but structurally may not be the best choice for the garden if you need it to support weight or water. While black sheeting is more commonly used there are some very distinct advantages to using clear plastic instead. Crops that grow in the cool seasons such as root vegetables peas spinach and lettuce does much better without the use of plastic sheet cover.

When the time comes to cut holes in the plastic to plant. It s generally more difficult for weed roots to penetrate plastic than fabric. Winter vegetable gardens require advanced planning and. Lay heavy duty black polythene plastic sheeting on the ground and weight it down leave for 2 3 months in summer or six months in winter lift the plastic remove slugs and dig up perennial weeds dig over the soil and prepare it for planting.

It also helps warm the soil for early planting. Consequently the best time for covering a vegetable bed in black plastic mulch is in early spring before the growing season starts. The effectiveness goes down in cooler locations the effectiveness of garden plastic sheets or a black garden tarp goes down when used in the cooler coastal regions. Place the soil that is removed from the trench into a wheelbarrow for use later.