Jack Schmidling wrote:

Marilyn was reading some off-the-wall hype about how red plastic mulch
under tomatoes will make them grow better and faster. I, of course,
dismissed it as nonsense.

The row along the fence looks to have nothing under it but vegetation.
In fact, the whole patch looks lush with grass and weeds with
significant encroachment on the un-red mulched row. And that's not
examining the grass on the outside of the fence. Under the
circumstances, I don't see that the positive benefits of red mulch
argument has any validity in this case, as you are essentially comparing
apples and oranges.