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Post by daylilydude on Jan 30, 2011 22:40:34 GMT -5
Is this something you should do every year or what?
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rintintin
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Posts: 150
Joined: December 2010
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Post by rintintin on Jan 30, 2011 22:58:12 GMT -5
I have mixed emotions about this practice. A) It will warm your soil earlier B) It will bake many weed seeds C) It will kill many pests and their eggs
BUT, it will also kill off many of your beneficial insects as well. A healthy population of beneficial insects is need to keep the others in balance throughout the growing season.
Although it is "organic", it certainly not natural.
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Post by daylilydude on Jan 30, 2011 23:25:04 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking too, I spend a lot of time trying to get worms in there and it would just kill them too right?
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rintintin
Pro Member
Posts: 150
Joined: December 2010
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Post by rintintin on Jan 31, 2011 0:09:22 GMT -5
The worms would probably burrow deeper to find cooler soil (unless there is a hard pan they cannot penetrate). Many of the beneficial insects (and/or their eggs) would perish as well as the bad ones. A healthy soil has millions of "critters" living in it. A well balanced soil will have a large enough population to keep the bad bugs in check. If you kill all of them, your plants will attract the bugs who forage on your plants, and there will be no natural way to control their numbers. A solarized soil is neither natural, nor healthy. There will be nothing in it to break down the organic matter into usable forms for your plants.
Where I see solarizing as a possible benefit would be if you were converting a pasture into garden soil, and wanted to start with a clean slate...no grass/hay/weed seeds all at once. Tilling alone will not accomplish that, because it will just bring to the surface seeds that might have been burried a foot deep.
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Post by w8in4dave on Jan 31, 2011 13:14:50 GMT -5
just how would you do such a thing??
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Post by stratcat on Jan 31, 2011 14:33:18 GMT -5
If you really wanted to solarize, take a roll of clear plastic sheeting and stretch it out over your soil when snow is off the ground. Hold the edges down with soil to keep the heat in and let the sun do its job.
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Post by coppice on Feb 1, 2011 12:42:02 GMT -5
As counter-inuitive as it sounds (putting clear plactic down to solarize (poach) soil. I watched it being done with good result. As in the before, during, and after.
The guy who wants braging rights for (some) super early corn might want to do a small parcel.
The gardener plagued by nut-grass, or some other very persistant grass could easily find the excuse to solarize their entire garden.
Will they need to solarize every year? Not if they mulch and use light blocks after solarizing their beds.
Is solarizing harmful to the benificial micro-herd in their garden? Probably. The over-all effectiveness of solarizing makes this not a yearly cook-off.
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