Bob
My mother in law sickened tire of weeding her garden. She took her old carpets and spreaded them over her.whole garden to prevent weeds. She cuts a hole the size of a dinner plate every 12 inches to grow whatever and no weeds. The carpet lasted for 5 years now and still going. Clever! !!
Tony
That’s what I was trying to do with the black plastic. Under all those weeds in the top pic is black plastic. The weeds grow within an inch or so of the strawberries, so that when I pull them, it takes the strawberry with it. Maybe the carpet worked better with her garden because the garden plants grew big enough quickly enough to shade out the weeds. I might not be watering my strawberries enough for them to do that.
Tony,
Your mentioning of this carpet thing reminded me of the early day when I first visit Chinatown and saw so many dirty carpet laying out in the people’s backyard. I had no clue why would people do that and felt disgusted at that eyesores. But I’m sure it’s quite effective.
Only thing prevent me to copy that is the chemical treatment to manufacture the carpet. Just wonder if there’s any research of the subject regarding chemical leech into soil, and into food?
Tom
Tom,
I am not sure but I have seen this practice the last 20 yrs in California also. My mother in law spreaded grass clippings on the top for a more natural look. Her garden looked awesome without weeds and less water evaporation. Her bitter melons, calabash. Ridged Luffa, garland chrysanthemum, hairy melon. Hot mint, lizard"s tail, long coriander. Perilla, Thai mini eggplant, water convolvulus, and Vienamese green and yellow melons are top notch and better than store bought.
Tony
I’ve been trying the PVC pipe method. This is my first time ever growing strawberries, so I have no basis of comparison, and no word on long-term effectiveness. Here’s a picture.
I have about 20 plants (Eversweet Strawberry Everbearer from Stark Bros), and get roughly 1-3 berries a day out of them. I don’t know if that’s a great yield. I should probably water them more than I do, and I bet I could have packed at least twice as many plants in per pipe. I also think that water doesn’t get distributed very evenly along the column, and should have been more thorough drilling holes in the pipe that I have running through the middle of all these. An automated drip system would probably take care of all of those problems.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with them in the winter yet.