Using plastic on your beds

[ducks4you]

I was reading this winter and one of my old gardening books talks about preparing your beds with plastic. The author suggested covered the entire bed for maybe a week or so, to warm up the soil and make it easier to weed the bed before planting. I just replaced 4 worn shower curtains and I have a worn plastic table cloth plus I save the 3 cu ft. pine shaving plastic that houses pine bedding for my animals, so I'm using all of this.
Anybody else use plastic in their beds? How do YOU do it?

 

[so lucky]

If it is not pretty dark, the weeds will sprawl out underneath it. If the weeds get light, they will grow. You could cover the clear plastic with mulch. Or put several layers of newspaper down first, then the plastic on top, anchored down. That will get the weeds. course, I don't think that would warm the soil much. Black plastic would do the trick.

 

[Smart Red]

One year. . .

I covered one raised bed with black plastic. Then I covered the bed with a home-made plastic "hoop tunnel" affair. I was able to lay out on the bed in sub-freezing January weather soaking up the sun and heat inside. I actually planted the bed in mid-February. Everything got an extra early start that year, but the end result was my later garden plants seemed to catch up to the early ones anyway.

I never redid the experiment because the wind made the hoop tunnel hard for me to manage. I am planning on trying a cattle panel system that covers two raised beds so I can get in and out without having to remove part of the plastic.

 

[NwMtGardener]

Yup, what everyone else said, black plastic is the way to go. I attempted to "cook" my weeds with clear plastic one spring...they loooooved it! Grew like crazy in their little mini greenhouse :/

 

[OldGuy43]

I don't like plastic on my bed. It's cold in the winter, and in the summer it makes me sweaty and my skin sticks to it. I know it protects the mattress and is sanitary, but it's not comfortable to sleep on.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Carry on.

 

[catjac1975]

Cooking weeds needs to be done with black plastic over a long period of time. I think clear would also do the job but only in the hottest driest time of year. As for heating the soil I do that for growing sweet potatoes in the north. Black plastic on the soil 2 weeks prior to planting. Those directions came from the potato supplier.

 

[peteyfoozer]

I don't like plastic on my bed. It's cold in the winter, and in the summer it makes me sweaty and my skin sticks to it. I know it protects the mattress and is sanitary, but it's not comfortable to sleep on.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Carry on.

 

[Carol Dee]

I don't like plastic on my bed. It's cold in the winter, and in the summer it makes me sweaty and my skin sticks to it. I know it protects the mattress and is sanitary, but it's not comfortable to sleep on.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Carry on.

 

[ducks4you]

I don't like plastic on my bed. It's cold in the winter, and in the summer it makes me sweaty and my skin sticks to it. I know it protects the mattress and is sanitary, but it's not comfortable to sleep on.

Sorry, couldn't resist. Carry on.

Guess you don't use covers on your couch, either.

 

[OldGuy43]

Guess you don't use covers on your couch, either.

No! My grandmother bought those nasty things from Fingerhut, I hated them.