The pictures below show some of the preparation for the epic weed battle. If you cover the ground, no weeds will grow. This leads to questions such as, "How do you use the field?" or, "How do you supply water?".
So what we've done is laid out a mulch (fancy word for barrier) in rows that are 4 feet wide with a 1/2 inch poly pipe laid underneath each row. Each of our rows in the field are like this, twenty four so far. The mulch is kind of like a plastic garbage bag on a roll. You can buy the roll in a few varieties - the best one is a cornstarch product that is biodegradeable, thus tillable. You do not have to dispose of it. Ours is not cornstarch based, but it was a gift from a friend to test it's benefits in terms of weed reduction so we're testing it. It is tough and can handle foot traffic making it great for picking veggies. It also heats the soil, keeps the vegetables clean and I have found that some of the beneficial beetles and such tend to hang out at it's edges. As seen in the photos, the mulch is held to the ground with piles of sand placed every 10 feet along the edges to keep the wind from picking it up.
The 1/2 inch poly pipe underneath is used to supply water to the plants. I've taken the line and punctured it every foot with an awl. The small stream from each hole brings the water to the plants. This is my home-made version of a commercial drip-line. Because we are on a slight grade in our garden, I broke the rows into zones or groups of eight and I can water by zone without losing pressure. Each drip-line is teed into a one inch header line fed from our irrigation pond.
As for the plants, it is best to cut a small hole (2 inch) in the mulch, dig a hole for the slip, set it in the hole and then push the loose soil tight around it. This does slow the planting process a bit, but the benefit of not weeding outweighs this time about 20 to 1.
Happy planting!
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