What are the benefits of solarizing?

DH and I are thinking about covering 2 plots this winter to help kill out the grass and weeds for gardening in next year. Their pasture plots and full of grass.

What are the other benefits of using plastic over the ground for along period of time, someone told me once, what it does to the ground. by heating it up. But I can't remember.

Can I just use black plastic , would that work? I'll be weighing it down with rocks and boards this fall and pulling it up next spring.

http://ag.arizona.edu/gardening/news/articles/12.8.html

Here is a link that may help.

cool, thanks

WOW! learned alot, learned I was going to use the wrong color and the wrong time of year LOL not sure what to do now, cause this is an area that will always be planted during the hot months.

It dosn't say that the clear plastic will kill grass. but I guess the heat will kill anything that lives under that plastic.

I used clear plastic once to solarize.....a waste of time usually. You have the plastic expense and labor; you have plastic breaking down after 2 months to dispose of [lots of little pieces] if you use the thinner and hotter thickness; you lose most of a growing season......plus the ground needs to be bare and moist to begin with.

Can you disk it?.... or gracious me oh my, Round Up as a near last resort?



This message was edited May 13, 2008 5:41 PM

WE disked, before we planted the corn, but the grass is back all over the place, it was a pasture before and we never did anything to clear the grass out.

from what that link says, only 4 to 6 weeks is all you need to solarize. and I did read that the ground needs to be disked and watered before doing this.

Solarizing has to be done in hot weather.One problem is that the best heat transmitting plastic is clear plastic which allows some growth underneath....kind of pricey if you do much area.

Don't you think that the heat generated will kill grass though? which is the main reason we want to try it

I don't know.