The Weed Control Fabric Experiment Continues

Thursday produced another nice summer’s day with the temperature into the mid twenties. It clouded over late afternoon threatening heavy rain that surprisingly stayed away apart from a short but heavy shower early in the evening.

Our weed control fabric experiment is continuing on the plot. Certainly it’s cut down on the amount of weeding dramatically and I don't think we have had any crops that have suffered as a result of being planted through the fabric. 

Now cleared of it’s summer crop of potatoes this bed has been dug over. Helped by the recent rainfall the ground dug over easily and after some chicken manure pellets had been incorporated the bed has been covered with weed control fabric. Part of the bed will be planted up with sweet Williams and wallflowers for next spring. Any space left in the bed could be used for a successional planting of lettuce. 

Some of our alpine strawberries grown from seed this year were planted up around the edges of one of out apple tree beds. These too were planted through fabric. The partially rotted horse manure has only been used to hold the fabric in place but will eventually be incorporated into the soil once it has completely broken down.

Next on the list is to prepare the bed for our winter onions using the same piece of fabric as used for winter onions last year.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett