Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Working Smarter, Not Harder

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This year in my garden I am going to try and stay on top of weeds better than I did last year. I was pretty good about keeping them pulled, but that is a never ending task.

In one bed last year I tried using that cheap black landscape fabric as a weed barrier. It worked great, so much so that I am using it anywhere that I can this year. The thing I like about it is that it comes in 4 foot rolls so it works perfect for my 4x4 and 4x8 boxes. I think it pays to spend a little extra time and energy on the front end before you plant, rather than a ton of time and energy pulling weeds on the back end.

Obviously I can't use the black plastic on vegetables with a real close spacing. It would take too much time poking that many holes. I plan on using this method for squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, lettuce, and spinach. Hopefully I will stick with it.

No, this is not lettuce or spinach. That is a bed full of weeds. I don't even want to think about it what it will take for me to clean this mess up. This is why I am going to try a new method.

Here is my first bed using it. The four holes on the right are for lettuce that I planted. The two slits on the left are two rows of spinach. I am staggering my plantings so I will be cutting more holes as I plant.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What kind of weed mat do you use? I'm considering black plastic trash bags b/c the stuff from the stores (fabric) is still letting too many weeds through!

bethany at themadrids.com

Kris said...

Bethany, It was just the regular cheap black fabric stuff you get at Home Depot or Lowes. I had pretty good luck with it for my peppers last year. I put it down in July and when I pulled it out last month there were no weeds.