On Feb 3, 9:22 am, Sheldon wrote:
On Feb 2, 6:44�pm, "Zootal" wrote:

Question: I have an old plastic 10' diameter swimming pool liner. If I were
to spread that on the ground, would the soil under it dry out enough that I
could work with it (dig in it, plant stuff, etc.)? I'm in the mid Wilammette
Valley, Oregon, and it rains and rains and rains this time of year, and my
entire back yard is mud, and remains mud until late April, maybe not until
May.

If anything that plastic liner will prevent the ground underneath from
drying until long after the surrounding ground dries. Sounds like
your only salvation is raised bed gardening, or at least build up a
berm for a planting bed. But in your area farmers don't work their
ground until early may anyway, it's too wet earlier, but more
importantly it's too cold outdoors to plant earlier. Planting too
early actually puts you behind, your seeds/seedlings if not damaged
will die... and with many crops (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, etc.)
once damaged they will never fully recover, it would be best to
replant. Planting a little late will actually be a head start.
What's your big rush... if you insist on getting an early start then
you need a greenhouse.

Like the OP, I'm in Oregon - outside of Eugene/southern Willamette
Valley. Our soil actually drains well, but even so, our gardens are a
virtual quagmire right now. Likely to stay that way for a while -
between the rains and melting snow, even our raised beds are weeks
away from being workable. The only outdoor gardening we'll be able to
do for a while involves a chain saw - sadly, last week's heavy snow
brought down two of our trees.

Have a small greenhouse, but it's filled to the gills with my frost
tender container plants. Established plants do ok in there with a heat
lamp, but with lots of 20 degree nights and a mid-May frost danger
date - it's too cold for me to germinate seeds in the winter here.
Suggest you might want to try an indoor garden.

Last fall we built in 8' bench in the warmest corner of the garage and
hung 2 banks of adjustable grow lights. Now have multiple flats of
perennial cuttings happily growing under lights on heat mats. They're
thriving and when the ground is finally workable, I'm going to be way
ahead of the game. An adjacent deck is the perfect place to harden
plants off before they migrate to the garden. Will start annual seeds
next month. The lights & mats were well worth the investment and I
can't tell you what a pleasure it was to go tend my indoor garden last
week when we were snowed in...

Nancy T