Its pouring

[HomeMadeMom]

Its been raining for two days now... so I haven't been able to do anything out in the lawn. I'm itching to start my herb/veggie garden but theres not much I can do right now. Plus its been colder the past few days than it usually is.

SO.. I did something I used to do as a kid. I put my seeds in paper towels, wet the paper towels, and stuck them in plastic cups on a window sill.

Think it'll work?

HMM

[Chris_W]

I've done the paper towel trick for seeds before too, but found that they sprout almost too well, and before long I have more seedlings than I know what to do with

We are going to put in a big garden this year, but haven't had a chance to clear an area yet. I'm going to just dig up the grass and then add tons of compost to the spot, but likely will have more weeds than veggies this first year. Seems like it always takes a couple years to get the weeds under control in a new vegetable garden, so at least I'm prepared for it. Any tricks to keeping weeds down in them?

I hope that it stops raining soon so you can get back outside

Chris

[John]

Chris, don't some people put down black plastic sheeting, to bake the life out of the weed seeds? Seem to recall something about that, maybe someone will know.

I've heard of the damp paper towel idea, but for testing germination rates of suspect seeds...

[HomeMadeMom]

lol Chris

John, I am kinda testing these seeds. My mother gave them to me and she's had some of them for over 10yrs. I dont know that they will grow, but we shall see

Dont know what to tell you about the weeds Chris except diligence lol. I personally hate the black sheeting, but thats just my opinion. I find it just gets in my way. Good luck with digging out your garden Chris

Its stopped raining now and should be nice this weekend. So if the children agree with me, then I should be able to get back out there!

[John]

The black plastic sheeting would go on the ground BEFORE any planting is done, and would then be removed. The idea is to attract solar energy and heat up the soil so weed seeds are killed off. Then the plastic is removed--- thankfully---and the garden is planted. As I recall. This will also heat up the soil a bit earlier, maybe that was even the prime objective?

[kHT]

John, we use the soil solarization during the late fall when we put the garden beds to sleep, this is left one until we get ready to till end of April. We also love to put plastic folded up in the rows to help control the weeds. If an area isn't used then the plastic will stay down in that area. Less weeds is great!!

[kHT]

We pulled the plastic off the beds today, here is a photo so you can see the soil. We put a pile of compost out to get ready to
spread out before tilling.