We need all the help we can get

When it comes to keeping on top of the weeds anything that can tip the balance in our favour is welcome. When plants are producing crops, time is devoted to harvesting so weeding is neglected. Picking various berries is especially time consuming so at fruit picking time weeds can get a bit - no lets be honest a lot - out of control.

We have had weed control fabric around the base of our apple hedge and redcurrant bushes for ages now. The fabric is covered with bark chippings which are dropped off by the council. The photos below were taken just after laying the fabric in September 2009.

The bark chippings are probably due for a top-up now but this has certainly helped keep around the base of the plants tidy.

As this weed control method has been such a success, this year we decided to use the fabric for other beds so we can hopefully cut down on weed growth and have more of a chance of keeping up with weeding on the rest of the plot. That's the theory anyway and a lot depends on whether we can reuse the fabric in future years as it is too expensive to keep replacing!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've posted lots about using the fabric around our strawberry plants. In spite of the very wet conditions our fear that covering the soil would encourage slugs has been unfounded. Obviously there has been slug damage to berries but no more than usual in fact maybe less than in previous years. We intend to remove the fabric over winter to let the soil breathe and also so we can hoe around the plants and feed them.

 

Last year we took our eye off the ball and weeds smothered our carrots. Combined with the dry conditions the weeds robbed the carrots of any moisture that there was in the ground and the carrots failed miserably. This was a disaster as we love home grown carrots. We were determined to try and prevent a repeat so we decided to try employing weed control fabric on the carrot bed. This too has been a success. The carrots haven't been weeded other than when they were very small and very few if any weeds are evident amongst the carrot foliage.

Flushed with the above successes we have now moved on to trialling the use of weed control fabric for some of our other crops.

In this years very wet conditions, earlier planted lettuce was quickly swamped by weeds and so the latest lettuce planting has been through fabric. Other than the odd failed plant things are looking promising.

We have also used fabric on the bed in which we have planted winter brassicas. So far so good - the brassicas are growing well.

Compare these to the uncovered brassica bed which was weeded at about the same time as the winter brassicas above were planted. So far the weeds aren't too dominant in the photo below but give them time! I may be imagining things but the brassicas planted through the fabric seem to be growing faster than usual - maybe it's due to the cool wet conditions rather than the covered soil or maybe the green manure that was dug in prior to planting the brassicas has had an effect. Whatever the reason, the fabric isn't hampering growth ...

... so following on from this we have now planted some spring cabbage through fabric.

We're also thinking of planting our autumn onion sets in a similar way to the carrots i.e. in a sort of channel through the fabric. The channel will be wide enough to allow the onions to grow but should keep down the weeds between the rows. Onions hate being weedy and can be quite difficult to keep weed free so it's worth trying to suppress any weed growth.

Has anyone else any experiences at using weed control fabric with other crops?