In article
,
Billy wrote:

and I am planning on playing with black plastic ground covers for my
tomatoes and peppers. After last year's cool summer, I'm ready to do
some tweaking.

I'm leery of plastic. Landscape fabric is a weed stop, but allows water
and air through.

Always a pleasure Om. My main concern is warming the soil. Two years
ago, I had twelve 100F + days and the garden responded wonderfully. Last
year, I had two 100F + days and the garden struggled. Basically, I'm
trying to warm the soil as the sunlight doesn't seem to be to different
from year to year. From my cursory browse of the effects of plastic
ground covers, I found two schools that had done the experiments. They
recommended clear plastic until mid-july to mid-August, when they pulled
back the plastic to keep from over heating the soil. Above 91F (33C),
the roots become over heated and reduces yeild. All the other sites,
anecdotally reported the superlative effects of red plastic, putatively
because of reflected red and infrared wave lengths but there was no
clear advantage

Ok, I see where you are coming from.
Black absorbs the most heat in general so I'd continue with that since
that is your goal.

Landscaping fabric is black also so should warm the soil some, but not
as much. Soil warming is not my goal here. If I'm going to germinate
seeds, I'll do that in the greenhouse under lights.

I tend to cheat tho' and get bedding plants pre-grown since I don't grow
a lot. The water is too expensive. Like I said before, I'll be container
growing my 'maters this year to conserve water.

Why is it strange to get tired of weeding? When the weeds want to
overwhelm the tomato plants...

I was being facetious, sweety;-)

Ah. Missed that. g

I hate weeding as much as the next
person. I love watering although my drip is much more efficient. My
weeding gets done on a hit and miss basis when I make my rounds of the
garden. My biggest problems have been the spearmint moving into the
lettuce patch, or the peppermint infiltrating last years tomato area, or
the woodruff trying to over whelm the chives and my lavander. As I
mentioned in another post, I'm trying to get my plants to hold hands,
hoping that the shade and mulch will squeeze out the undesired plants.
It worked pretty well last year except for the tomatoes and the green
beans swapping some kind of leaf curl. They are at separate ends of the
garden this year.

Hope it works out!

Well, it's Basketball season here now, so we root for the spurs. g

I dunno, I like watching the kids play basketball but watching grown men
run up and down a court in shorts doesn't spin my wheels. And of course,
it doesn't have to.

Oh I generally just catch it on the radio on the way to work at night.
I'm only a luke-warm fan at best, but I have co-workers that are major
fans so it gives me something to talk about with them. Final scores,
various players and such.


And why are you hanging out on tx.guns if it causes you so much angst?

Funny you should mention that. I was told that there was some good
discussions over there, but as the name implies, it's all about people
who like to shoot things and what they like to shoot them with. I have a
gun. I have a hammer. I have a hose but I don't obsess on them. To me
they are just tools. On the other hand, I'm willing to obsess on
gardening, I think it brings out my inner Hobbit.

As it does in all of us! g
Plus, there is nothing on gods green earth like a sun warmed, vine
ripened tomato! There is nothing at all in the stores that is even close
except for maybe those vine tomatoes that sell for twice the price.

I need to put in a sweet 100's this year. Give me something to take to
the nephews during the week once they get going. If I put in two of
them, I'll have cherry tomatoes galore.

Good source of Lycopenes. g


I was just on my way over to tx.guns and thank them for their
forbearance of an aging California hippie and bow out of further
discussions.

I see you went back. ;-)
Some of the political stuff can get pretty interesting. It's one of the
few groups that can at least have civilized discussions (for the most
part anyway) unless it's being cross posted from talk.politics.guns.

That list is a sewer much of the time. :-P

Glad to see you back at wrecked gardens edible.

I'm not posting much anywhere right now. Just been busy with other
things, so my posting volume is way down overall.

Go Spurs;-)

Cheers babe! g I'm off to work here shortly.

TGIF!!!
--
Peace, Om
Remove underscore to validate gmails.

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have
come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
-- Mark Twain