Black plastic or membrane?

[paidpnuts]

I've managed to get most of the bare ground on my plot dug over for the winter, and want to keep it weed-free.  Should I use porous weed suppressant membrane to allow water and air to the soil, or good old cheap black plastic?
I've spent the last 3 years adding plenty of nutrients, and now have a good friable soil, and don't want to risk spoiling that. Also, would it be a good idea to put a layer of leaves (stored in black bags for nearly a year) under whatever I use?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

[paidpnuts]

[johhnyco15]

really a good layer of leaves held down by a net should be all you need i wouldn't go down the black plastic route the ground will dry up and so will all your good things in it but black weed suppressant  would be  but id just keep to the leaves and net i cover my plot in straw and a net hope this helps

[ACE]

All this covering the ground is a waste of time. Perenial weeds and grasses will just lay dormant, waiting for a bit of sunlight and warmth and away they go. Any annuals will die with the cold anyway, their seeds will pop up when they are ready, but the plants can be dug back in as green manure. Weed suppressant is good when you are planting something in it and keeps the weeds from choking your plants. Once removed it is situation normal again. If you have the plot ready for next years planting, you have already wasted your time and made a nice snug bed for all the pests and spores to overwinter. A good rough dig is all that is needed then let the frost do its work over the winter months.

[Digeroo]

One of my neighbours has a huge piece of the membrane and in the spring simply rolls it back a strip at a time and plants in it.  Have to say it seems to work well.  It is very expensive.  I was given a small piece which I move round.  It does at least keep the weeds from growing, a patch waiting for action is quite nice.  It warms the soil as well.  Leaves for me tend to simply blow off so I dig them under and the worms deal with them.  I prefer green manure which I dig in in the spring.

[Obelixx]

My garden guru swears by cardboard.   She puts large sheets of it down in autumn when she's cleared her veg beds.   Come spring, it has stopped the annual weed seeds from germinating whilst allowing water into the soil.  It rots down over winter and can be forked in a bit at a time when preparing beds for sowing or planting.

She gets hers from shops that sell large items like furniture and white goods.  I'm going to try it this year.

[tricia]

I use black membrane on my four raised beds after clearing them and adding a good layer of farmyard manure. I don't dig, just loosen the very friable soil a bit first. The worms do the rest  . My primary reason for using membrane is to deter the umpteen neighbourhood cats from using my garden as their litter box 

Tricia 

[Tee Gee]

I'm with Ace on this one.

I let nature take its course in terms of survival i.e. bugs & weeds.

I think winter weathering is essential for the soil and its good / bad contents.

Plus the fact it is another unecessary job to do in my opinion.

I am not an 'organic' gardener as such nor am I a great nature lover, but I do understand the need for soil care and the animal food chain.

Uncovered soil during the winter gives access to the weather and the wildlife, good or bad.

The only covering I do is with nets to protect my crops from flying pests e.g pigeons!


This has been my procedure on my plots for nearly thirty years and if I say so myself my soil looks to be in good health.

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Soil-Preparation/soil%20preparation%20ss.swf


I also look upon the appearance of my spring time weeds as my wake up call to get things started, i.e. natures alarm clock.

As I have mentioned in the past I am also using natural events to tell me when to sow and plant seeds,e.g spring bulbs.

The way I look at it:  nature has been at this game for millions of years so it must have something to tell.

[Deb P]

I cover some of my beds with a thick mulch of manure in autumn. I tried covering some with black plastic over the top one year, and all that happened was the beds got very dry, and became a nice snug home for slugs and two wasps nests! I didn't try that again.
Also tried the cardboard, both below and above a manure mulch. Unless you keep it well weeded anyway it didn't make much difference to weed regrowth, so I now just mulch thickly and leave the weather to do its thing and fork over in the spring, plus really keep on top of weeding early on before it gets out of hand. I tried green manure on a few beds last year, that was ok but I found it spread everywhere very quickly and was a weed itself in the end!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Cardboard works up to a point, but weeds like ground elder will come through. They're badly weakened in the process, so it's a case of planting stuff which can be harvested reasonably quickly, then digging the weeds out. Repeat as necessary, and don't allow them to recover.

Black plastic also works, given time, but spreading weeds like couch, bindweed and ground elder will run underneath unless you trench round the edge. When you lift the plastic you need to dig at once before they re-establish.

[Vinlander]

There's no system that works if you leave perennial weeds in a bed, but once you've got them out there are lots that work.

There's a technical term I can't remember which applies to clearing ground, thus exposing soil to sunlight and then hoeing the flash crop of weed seedlings - which gets rid of the majority of the most viable weed seeds. It works well but you need to keep hoeing until you sow crops.

However leaving the bed exposed all winter without any maintenance will produce strong weeds by March that are much more than twice as hard to hoe out - some will need a trowel or fork.

A simple variation is to cover the soil to kill the first flush instead of hoeing it. Then you a have nice clean surface in spring.

As to dry soil - bring it on! it warms up so much quicker - but you don't want it too dry either - so covering soil with plastic before December is a risk.

For absolute minimum maintenance and outlay I swear by covering with cheap tarp (almost immune to foxes) and covering that with at least 5cm of wood chip - which has 2 functions - it stops the sunlight ruining the tarp in 2 or 3 years and provides the fully opaque cover you need to kill weeds. Branches and brushwood around the edges stops the chip blowing away, or you can use stones (I also use 2L bottles wrapped in newspaper, or just folded & stacked newspaper tied into 100mm high "gabions"). You can plant through the tarp or just pierce it enough in one spot to let roots through and put a ring-culture type pot on that spot for your  plant - works well for vigorous but medium sized stuff like sweetcorn, tomatoes, cucumbers etc. For courgettes and bigger you'll need to cut right through.

Cheers.

[nodig]

Here is your chance to experiment paidpnuts.  Use plastic on half the plot and membrane on the other half.  Come back in say May and let us know which proved to be the most successful for you.