In article
,
"Dan L." wrote:

Being in region 5 myself. Peppers have been a problem for me as well.
The season is short, just one hundred days from frost to frost. I have
never used plastic either. I will guess that Billy is correct, it is to
raise the soil temperature. I have found bugs and weeds rarely effect my
pepper plants. I started my pepper plants indoors in Mid March this
year, not early enough to get nice red or gold sweet bell peppers, just
green. Most summers in Michigan are mild - upper 70's°F to Mid eighties
during the day, mid sixties at night. However, on occasion some summers
have hung around the low nineties. Rare to get above 100°F.

I use raised beds for my peppers. In raised beds soil temp does get
warmer faster. Still, I think I need to start peppers indoors in early
February.

My guess, not positive, that a drip irrigation system waters and
fertilizes the plants. Leave a future posting and let me know how well
plastic sheeting works.

I think this is my plan
http://organicgardening.about.com/od...ce/a/minihooph
ouses.htm

and this is roughly how I'm going to do it. The other possibility is to
put short pieces of rebar in the ground to hold the PVC.
http://westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html

I have thought about hoop houses.
But are they more for insect control than temperature control?
Deer and Raccoons are more of a problem than bugs.

Some areas grow things better that others. I usually end buying most of
my peppers. Michigan does grow things well like blueberries.


I think my plans for a hoophouse hit the wall when I found that they
absorb 5% - 20% of the sunlight. As I have often lamented, I live on the
north side of a hill, and at best I get 6 - 7 hr.s of full sunlight per
day during the height of summer, and none from Dec. to mid Jan. I don't
think I can afford to give up any sunlight.

The last time I used a plastic mulch, I had small plants that got burned
from the plastic. My plants are much larger this year, so I think I'll
give it another go.

On other gardening fronts, I laid down some 2 X 4 wire fencing in one of
my beds where Mr. Raccoon liked to dig in the mulch. There was a little
digging around the perimeter of the metal mesh afterward, but its been 2
weeks since I've seen any sign that he has been here.

Today, I'll lay down some more of the fencing on the lettuce patch, and
then plant it. That dibble is a damn handy tool.
--
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html