Topic: Growing Spuds under black plastic

[AndrewB]

Tried this for the first time this year, seemed brilliant, all grew through the slits and no weeding.  Dug them up today and half of the crop were full of holes & some virtually hollow :-[  Be warned slugs love it - nice and warm and damp, no predators under there.  Saw a big frog, hope it gets all the little b******s.

[Debs]

Wardy,

What type of plastic did you use?

My plot is a breeding ground for snails & slugs, so would not want to lose my pots to the

slimey beasties.

Was this method asuccessful at keeping down the weeds?

Debs

[wardy]

The plastic is heavy duty woven stuff with squares on white or red on it.  It's usually called Red Stripe by Tenax but there are others but slugs don't seem to like it much as it's a bit rough.  You will get slugs though as they are inevitable but I put slug pellets secured in boxes (washing detergent etc) round the potato beds and the coffee to try and deter them.  I had thrushes nesting on my plot so they did a good job with the slugs and snails for me  :) 
I put cardboard down before the manure and this helped to keep the weeds down.  I got no weeds come up through the cardboard and thick manure layer which was brilliant as I had only hacked the weeds down, not killed them off beforehand.  The pic shows the spud bed at the end of the season when the cardboard had rotted away.  You can see there are no weeds.  You get weeds round the edges though.  I have grass paths which are a pain  :(