The message
from Jake D contains these words:

Hi all,
I'm fairly new to vegetable gardening, having started one year ago.
Now that the growing season is over, I'm thinking of trying the
technique of covering the plot with black plastic sheeting, to kill
off all vegetation, prior to next Spring's planting.

The timetable I am contemplating is to plant winter field beans, right
now, to enrich the soil. Then, early next Spring, when the field beans
have grown, cover the whole lot with black plastic for a suitable
time, to kill everything (field beans and weeds) then remove the
plastic and plant my vegetables in the weed-free soil.

Forget it. Let the field beans grow and treat them as small broad beans
- delicious!

The soil won't be weed-free for long.

(I probably
won't dig the soil over at this point, as I want to try no-dig
gardening next year.

You might have better results, then, but the moment you dig it over
you'll expose dormant seeds.

Does this sound like a good plan? Is the field-bean idea worth the
effort? Does it really improve the soil significantly?

I don't know about improving the soil, but the stems would, when
composted and spread. All they put in is nitrogen, and you can do that
with (say) steeped weeds, especially nettles.

Anyone else used the black plastick sheeting method routinely? Which
month do you do it and how long do you leave the sheeting in place? Do
you save the sheeting for use again, the following year?

Not recently, but I used to do it every year on the smallholding. In the
autumn I stacked goat and rabbit manure/cleanings, old cardboard, paper,
straw, weeds, mowings, greengrocers' throwouts (when spurned by goats),
up to a height of about two and a half feet, and covered it with
builders' membrane, opening it from time to time to water it with urine.

This was left for a year, and it resulted in a fine filth - er - tilth -
which wasn't significantly higher than the surrounding soil - but much
more fertile.

I'm still using some of the membrane fifteen years later.

--
Rusty
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