New yard, new garden, new hobby!

I am new to the gardening world and have spent countless hours reading, mapping my yard, sorting through seed catalogs, etc, and have finally come to the conclusion that alot of success is thru trial and error - I have mostly clay-based soil in a yard that is only about 5 years old (new subdivision) and has never been "worked", so I have covered my vegetable garden area (30 x 40) with thick black pastic to kill off weeds and grass for a few weeks - My plan is to till the area, have a "planters mix" soil from a local garden supply center delivered - re-till the soil and yard dirt - cover with weed blocking fabric and then plant, burying soaker hoses along the root paths - does this sound like the logical order to start a new garden ? Any hints or tips for me ? Thanks, NEW GARDEN MOM

This is only my humble opinion on plastic/weed blockers/ barriers


DO NOT USE THEM !!!

First experience with them: . We lived on a lake, and had to have a raised septic system. We laid weed barrier on top of it and then covered it with a thick layer of cedar mulch. Over a period of time the mulch decomposed. Then the weeds grow between top of the barrier & new mulch and it's roots grow thru the barrier. What a nightmare.

Second experience: Garden Club is rehabbing a Memorial Garden for Hospice. We start to dig, but the shovel won't go thru . There's that danged weed barrier. It's tangled in the roots, it's wrapped around trunks, it's flapping in the wind. What should have taken two days turns into 2 weeks. What a mess.

If you want to put down a weed barrier, I would suggest thick layers of newspaper. It decomposes eventually. I did check with our local publisher as to the kind of ink they used, in this case it was soy based ink. And no shiny paper. Prep your soil, lay down the newspaper, wet it until soggy, then add your mulch. In my cutting and veg garden, I mulch with straw and in my show-off beds, I use chips. The soaker hoses are laid under the mulch.

I agree with grannymarsh. The black plastic is fine for killing the weeds, but when you go to plant I would not use the weed block fabric or anything like that. I remember reading on another thread a couple years ago that it has a negative impact on the soil underneath, so I would never use the weed fabric under a garden bed. Under paths and things it's fine, but anywhere you want to grow things, newspaper is a better bet.

Boy, I sure wish I know that two years ago. Too late now.

I plan on cutting an x in a peice of newspaper and dirt over the top for each plant that I plant it is supposed to help block weeds and is biodegradable I don't remember where I read that. Even though my dh and I don't subsribe to a newspaper we get free flyers made out of newspaper all the time.

Thank you all so much for the info - I will plan to use the weed block fabric for pathways now - Better start saving those newpapers, though - Recycling is very cool and fun to teach our teens about. As of Monday I will be staying home FT with our young teenagers. We have many projects planned together, starting with growing veggies and planning healthier meals.
Question, some of the seeds we have planted in our "jiffy greenhouse" in peat pots are becoming very long and kinda leaning over - Unfortunately, I didn't realize until too late that we planted seeds of different kinds with different germination dates and we lost several to some icky white moldy stuff - YUCK! - Our last frost date isn't for 2 more weeks - plant early, or trust the farmer's almanac - what to do ?

For your seedlings that are leaning over, my guess is they don't have enough light. I have fluorescent shop lights over my seedlings, you need to keep the lights no more than a couple inches above the plants or else they don't do much good. And you should leave them on for 14-16 hrs a day. If you've just got them by a window or something that's probably not strong enough light (or enough hours of light) for them.

I had the same problem with alot of my seedlings - they kept falling over and then they would die. What I did was take them out of the jiffy pots (you can just pull the net off of the peat pot) and carefully repotted them into a plastic container. They are all in the same container. I did remove the bottom of the peat pot, it pretty much falls off.
When I planted them into the container I put them lower so I could put more potting soil to hold them up - it worked great! They are doing really good and dont fall over any more.
I also put them under a light for a few hours a day , after the sun goes down, so they get more "sunlight"
Also, mix hydrogen peroxide into your water when you water them. This helps so much with any kind of mold, fungus or bugs. There are a few excellent posts about this on here and they will give you a measurement of the H020 solution.
Good luck!
Bre

Here is a pic of my Iresine seedlings. I did reuse the jiffy container here, just took them out of the mesh peat pots and did the above. Dont forget to poke holes in the bottom of the container to water it from the bottom